LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

-3£ 



to- 




MTI6 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INSPIRATION 



AND OTHER 



DISCOURSES, 



BY 



Rev. John, L, Hewitt, A, M., 



OF THE 



WISCONSIN CONFERENCE. 



PASTOR OF 

FIRST M. E. CHURCH, 

BEAYER DAM. 

if '■' ' 



\>, 






janesville, Wisconsin: 
recorder printing company, printers. 

1883. 






ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS IN THE YEAR 1883, 

BY ,J. L. HEWITT, 
IN THE OFFICE OF LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON. 



TO 

MY FRIEND 

AND SPIRITUAL FATHER, 

UNDER WHOSE FAITHFUL MINISTRY 

I BECAME A CHRISTIAN, 

. AND A MINISTER, 

REV. P. S. BENNETT, A. M., 

THIS 

HUMBLE BOOK 

IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



Having sbeen frequently invited, by different persons, in 
various places, to give some of my pulpit thought to the press, 
I at length, with unaffected diffidence, yield to their persuasions 
and present this volume of sermonic literature, hoping that, as 
some of the thought herein embodied did when spoken accom- 
plish good, so in book form, it will, at least, do no harm. 

It is possible that some of those three thousand people, or 
more, who have composed my congregations during the last 
seventeen years, will read and recognize these discourses; noth- 
ing could add in^re to my happiness than to know that they 
recognize them as old friends, whose love was sincere, and whose 
utterances were intended for good, though imperfect. The 
author is not blind to their imperfections, and he earnestly re- 
quests his friends to quicken these old embers with the breath 
of prayer. 

" The vows 
Of God are on me, and I may not stop 
To play with shadows, or pluck earthly flowers, 
Till I my work have done, and rendered up 
Account." 

John L. Hewitt. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Mount of Inspiration ------- i 

Groans and Glory, ----- ___ 15 

Gospel Remedy for a Troubled Heart, - 27 

The Lord's Witnesses, ------- 43 

Christian Example, 57 

The Buried Talent, ---.-_-_ 69 

Parable of the Leaven, - - 85 

Th^ Irreproachable Gospel, - 103 

The Pillars of Our Faith, - 119 

The Standard of Right, ------- 140 

Profit of Godliness, -------- 156 

Strength, - - -- 173 

The Wonderful Works of God, ----- 190 

Short Beds and Narrow Coverlets, ----- 209 

The Bread of Life, - - 230 

The Christless World. - ------ 248 

The Mouth of the Wicked, ------ 268 

The Resurrection Body, -_-_._ 283 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



See, srtitb he, that thou make all things according to the pattern 
shewed to thee in the mount.— Heb. 8. 5. 

The historic parts of the Holy Scriptures might be 
^aid to be a record of remarkable events; but profane his- 
tory is as mysterious as sacred; the present is as strange as 
was the past; history repeats itself; marvels of Providence 
are perpetually recurring. The Aztec civilization is won- 
derful to us, and certainly ours as now it is would be strange 
to them could they behold it. Washington and Franklin, 
were they to become a Rip Van Winkles 1 ', could scarcely 
believe their own eyes, so great have been the changes of a 
century. Only the present is real, the past and the future 
are mythical, "distance lends enchantment to the view." 

The Hebrew exodus from Egyptian bondage, and the 
settlement of an empire of slaves under a government of 
their own, free from the shakles of the "bondman, is more 
than equaled by a similar emancipation of a far greater 
number of serfs and slaves during the last forty years. 

The supply of " manna 11 that fell from Heaven around 
the tents of Israel, finds its antitype in the present age; to- 
day, food does not descend the sky, nor is it carried to us 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



on downy wing, yet, the hungry are fed, the supply is al- 
ways at hand, the plenty of to-day covers the needs of to- 
morrow, and it does not seem to us that the supply is 
miraculous. As those old Hebrews were more inquisitive 
to know what kind of stuff that <J manna" was, than 
whence it came, so we investigate the nature of things, far 
more earnestly than we do the source from whence they 
come. 

If those Jews had seen steamships ploughing the sea, 
and long trains of cars drawn by iron horses over the des- 
ests, the valleys and the mountains; if each were burdvned 
with bread; or, had they heard the click of the telegraph 
telling them that the world were rushing to the rescue; 
then had they seen their warehouses bursting with abund- 
ance, the result of Christian sympathy; it would have been 
as wonderful to them as the manna that fell every night 
from the cloud. Whether, therefore, fallen from Heaven, or 
conjured and manipulated by science, or flowing from 
plethoric granaries, Grod is in it. it is one of the methods by 
which Providence interposes himself. 

One of the most singular histories recorded in Script- 
ure is that of thr. sacred Mount Sinai: those strange phe- 
nomena that appear to many incredible, and were fearfully 
awful to the Israelites are repeated to-day. That burning 
mountain has its model in modern history; its q.iaking, 
rocking, smoking, thundering can be accounted for by 
natural causes; it stands amid dessol ate surroundings, many 
a terrific convulsion must there have taken place; possibly 
on th^ recurrence of one of these the law was given. That 
burning mountain may not be more significant than other 
shuddering volcanoes; there is a moral law in each of them. 
equally so as between Vesuvius. Pompeii and the nineteenth 
century, as between tloreb. the Hebrew and the modern 
Gentile; smoking Sinai is at least not any more strange and 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



suggestive than a burning world, a sun seen, even in our 
day, to consume away in the Heavens. Indeed, if each of 
us were a Moses some glorious inspiration would come to 
us, both out of the peace and out of the storm. 

There is a Sinai in life for each to ascend; there 
are bounds in individual history that are too sacred for the 
multitude to touch; God is near though his pavilion be a 
cloud; consider therefore 

I. THE MOUNT OE INSPIRATION. 

" A French writer, it is said, passed an entire night in 
the cathedral of Notre Dame, for the purpose of inspiration. 
The conf' ssor moved down the aisle, the lingering incense 
at length vanished on fragrant wing; evening shadows 
lengthened, darkness lent its subduing power; the moon 
shone through the stained windows; shadows softly crept 
up the altar stairs, touched the dreamer and passed away, 
as though they were spirits that had slipped from the 
vaults beneath; before the dreamer's fancy an emperor was 
crowned, bridle robes rustled by the railing, a funeral pro- 
cession bearing bier and pall moved slowly forward, and, 
when the midnight bells were ringing, groined arches, state- 
ly columns, and the long nave and transept throwing back 
the echo, it seemed as though the dumb dead had found a 
voice and filled the cathedral with upbraidings and bless- 
ings;" — a strange wierd solitude in a grand old sanctuary 
simply to inspire a fiction. But so each one of us must be 
alone sometimes, each must ascend the Mount of Inspira- 
tion; and, according to our purpose, according to the nature 
and peculiar impressiveness of our minds, we shall secure 
the inspiration that we seek. 

To the skeptical spirit of the age inspiration is super- 
stition; the world of humanity is an opaque body and in 
all the universe there is not a ray divine to fall upon or be 
reflected from it, it gropes in the dust and moves eternally 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



in the same rut. Nor can it be expected that one who per- 
suades himself that he has no soul, that he is nothing but 
a roll of organic mud, kneaded by an evolution of circum- 
stances into a brief intellectual sell-hood, and destined 
soon to be dissolved into the inorganic — that he will be 
able to discover truth or beauty in the thought of inspira- 
tion. 

To the unprejudiced observer however, the man who is 
not overwhelmed by some pet opinion of his own, even 
matter is seen to be under the influence of some subtle in- 
spiration. The very rocks and stones are in an unconscious 
struggle to rise from their graves into the light of day; 
inert bodies rush into chemical wedlock, and unskilled 
atoms crystalize into beautiful forms, the very plant springs 
upward from the soil, and the flower aspires to pursue the 
sun in its celestial flight; an uplifting life has breathed 
power into all things. 

Scientists confronting mystery, as when " the undulating- 
wave is transmuted into a sensation of sound 11 , or a mole- 
cular motion is metamorphosed into a feeling of pain, or 
sorrow, or joy, are not only astonished, but stand on the 
very verge of the realm, the unknown, which is to them a 
perpetual inspiration. Tyndal says, u the translation of the 
shock of the etherial wave into consciousness eludes the 
analysis of my science 11 , yet he aspires to analize it. " I 
never expect to know anything, 11 says Mr. Huxley, "con- 
cerning the, steps by which a molecular movement passes 
into a state of consciousness, 11 yet he is in endeavor to make 
the discovery; the unknown is a mount of inspiration to the 
scientist. 

That which leads the scientist on to discovery and 
opens to him the everlasting gates of Truth, is the angel of 
inspiration; or the bow of promise with which God has 
crowned the future and without which all progression would 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATIONS 



cease. It touched the alchemist and brought the human 
mind into the magic and marvelous realm of modern chemis- 
try. It touched the astrologer and lifted him into the uni- 
verse of order and beauty where the astronomer counts 
worlds by millions, and watches them in their majestic 
march. Indeed, the materialist might declare, as the 
Greeks did of the symbolic Psyche " my soul has wings' 1 , I 
am furnished for a loftier world and a nobler destiny. 

Nor can it be doubted that inspiration more or less full, 
at least occasionally, is the experience and privilege of all 
men. When Newton beheld, in the purple depths of the 
starry concave the splendors of the Almighty; when Kant 
heard the divine voice within him.; when Plato felt an as- 
similation to the Eternal; when the self-hood of the Panthe- 
ist is for a moment lost in the infinite grandeur about him; 
when the seaman is overwhelmed with a thought of vastness, 
and the mountain shepherd with a grateful conception of 
peace and lovliness; when the Feegian fears the thunder 
and the lightning, or the African fancies that a supernatu- 
ral being is enshrined in a fetich; yea, when the soul in 
any sense communes with God, or thought rises into a realm 
supernal, it is under the spell of a spiritual inspiration, it 
is up in the mountain, above the earth, and the sapphire 
pavement is not far away. 

All religious beliefs are rooted in the supernatural ; Fet- 
ichism, Tanism, Buddhism, Mohamedanism, The Vedas, The 
Shasters, The Sybilines and the Koran are each inspired; 
each is a revelation, though perhaps because ot the imper- 
fection of the human mind and language, mixed, more or 
less, with error. But to the faith that grasped it, to the 
mind that recognized it, to the soul that fed upon it, to the 
age and the people that cherished it, each was divine. 

On this broad thought, let me postulate my belief, 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



namely: that all men are necessarily honest in their pecu- 
liar religious convictions; thev ought and they must be 
respected. Indeed, all religious belief must have a seeming 
of truth to the mind and the heart that appropriate them. 
Nay, there is in each an element of truth and at least a 
blush of inspiration; there is something worth savings 
something that will advance into the evermore; and, as be- 
tween the votaries of the various religions there ought not 
to be any ungentle antagonism, but rather those who oc- 
cupy the loftiest places should invite those who are beneath 
to broader views, to more perfect forms of truth and higher 
aspirations. 

There is then a mount of inspiration, nor need we go 
to Arabia to find it. It is where the soul builds its refuge, 
where it thinks its best thought, where it grasps its grand- 
est ideals and makes its best resolves. It is the greatest al- 
titude the soul can reach at this hour, the place where we 
form our supreme convictions; here our differing experien- 
ces are discovered and our individualities are bounded. We 
ought all pause long enough, in lire's noise and hurry, to 
forget, each day, our surroundings, to ascend the mount of 
our inspiration, to meditate on the truths and commune 
with the inteligence above us. Let us consider. 

II. THE REVELATIONS THAT ARE MADE IN THE MOUNT. 

If inspiration is a fact, important revelations will be 
expected; indeed revelations are numerous as inspiration is 
general; there are fresh unfoldments every hour. Some- 
thing has been disclosed to-day which hitherto was un- 
known, at least by the individual upon whose mind the 
vision dawned. By inspiration the soul is quickened to re- 
ceive truth, and by revelation truth is communicated to the 
soul. It were strange, in a world where these two forces 
are in constant play, if occasionally the cloud did not break 
and disclose some truth golden beyond. What though the 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



notions of men are often crude; what if many theories have 
fallen to naught; what though much of ideality is fiction; 
yet, " the universal feeling after truth, the universal beliei 
in truth, and the universal consciousness of the need of 
truth 11 are indications that truth is working in the human 
heart, and some day will break full-orbed upon it. 

Whence come those invisible influences that lift up 
and enlarge men? The race being animal born how is it 
that it has now been civilized and christianized ? I say, 
these things result from the inspiring, quickening forces of 
the divine spirit revealing to man the depths of his own 
soul, also the possibilities of his self-hood, adding to him all 
the sublime things of the universe of God, and calling out 
his innate powers just as the coaxing sunbeam calls out the 
wondrous nature of the seed; without this man would pet- 
rify where he stands. 

Thus each new thought becomes a new revelation. 
What a wonderful phenomenon is a thought? Born in the 
hidden depths of your brain, made audible in words, vibra- 
ing on the etherial wave, striking the drum of my ear, 
quivering along my nerve, pouring a subtle influence on 
the very center of my mind, discovering the throne of my 
invisible spirit, and metamorphosing thought into feeling, 
and sensations into ideas — how wonderful is the miracle of 
a thought! How strange that your unseen thought, with- 
out disappearing from the sanctum of your mind appears 
also in mine, and perhaps, in a thousand others, making in 
each a various train of ideas, and, it may be quickening em- 
pires and ages into action. 

One can scarcely think, so the philosophers suggest, of 
so common a thing as an apple, or an orange, without also 
thinking of it " ; as something contradistinguished from 
nothing, as possessed of attributes, as being similar to some- 
thing else, as belonging to a certain class, as being the 



8 THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 

effect of a cause, as occupying space, as the product of time," 
and with, many other inductions and inferences. 

But if a thing so common is the fruitful source of so 
many ideals, what shall be said of those uncommon 
thoughts, those great conceptions of the brain which, like 
Newton's thought of universal law, or Watt's thought of 
imprisoned power, or Darwin's thought of the descent of 
man, sweep down upon the world, affecting its philosophy, 
its mechanics, and its science? 

Yes, there is nothing more impressive or comprehen- 
sive, or suggestive, or potent, or enduring than a thought ; 
each thought is a revelation in itself: each time I capture 
the soul of a new idea I not only secure what I never had 
before, but have discovered the gates of a new realm which 
I possess and control, " turning into shapes the forms of 
things unknown." 

The thoughts of scientific thinkers must be accorded 
the honorable place that belongs to them. Science has 
climbed far up the peaks of inspiration. The savants lead 
the way and we follow; from the higher altitudes of their 
thought remarkable revelations have been made to the 
world. The Hindoo Manu, whoever he was felt an earth- 
quake shock, or saw a bursting volcano, or watched a river 
overflow its banks, and from these conceived a geological 
age, which, carried forward by a Cuvier or a Dana resulted 
in a revelation of the structure of the earth, andjthe_meth- 
ods by which its materials have been arranged. 

The soul of Franklin reveled in^the storm-cloud and 
carried away the spirit of the lightning, others profited by 
his inspirations, and now the magic empire of electricity 
flashes before us. 

The Chaldeans conceived the idea of measuring time by 
the motions of the heavenly bodies; Ptolemy climbed the 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



mountain a little higher and pointed out the center of the 
planetary system; Tycho Brahe still higher and by an 
elipse explained the motion of Mars; Newton still higher 
and on his mind dawned the thought of the power that 
holds the planets in their orbits; LaGrange and LaPlace 
higher still and thought out the laws on Avhich the starry 
system depends; and now as the result of scientific inspir- 
ation, a universe of worlds and suns divulges its secrets, and 
the first astronomer of the day becomes our Moses, who 
leads the Aarons and the Joshuas up into the mountain, 
receives the law from hands divine, and bids them declare 
to us what are the patterns of celestial things. 

Revelations in science are not all. Science is only one 
peak of the mountain range of inspiration; The moral 
reaches higher than the material; conceding the impor- 
tance of one, we must [concede ^still greater importance to 
the other; 'a perfect theism, an I a divine moralism, would 
if revealed, transcend all other revelations; the Supreme 
God, and the supreme good are two eternal suns having a 
common spiritual center of gravity. 

Men's morals are affected by their conception of God; 
Venus was Goddess of passion therefore prostitutes were 
consecrated to her worship. In the days >f Polytheism Var- 
ro collected all the opinions he could on the great question, 
"What is the supreme good?" and .'counted not less than 
three hundred and twenty different answers. As compar- 
ed with eternal right how small is the formation of a crys- 
tal, the unfolding of a flower, the construction of a magnet- 
ic coil, or the oscillations of a star. ^Indeed, it must be al- 
lowed that a revelation of God, a proclamation of moral 
law. would by the most important office of inspiration. 

Admitting that all men may be more or less inspired 
that all are climbing the mountain, some to one altitude, 
some to another, and allowing as we must, that sometimes 



10 THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 

whole empires are moved as by a divine impulse; it is still 
an important question, where can the highest moral in- 
spiration and revelation be found? that which will the 
clearest reveal God and principle to me? 

Not with Thales, Pythagoras, or Zenophanes for the 
heart feels that tliere is something higher than nature. 
Not with Socrates, Aristotle, or Plato, for the mind longs 
for something greater than itself. Not with Zoroaster, 
Buddha, or Confucius, for there is something more potent 
than fire, more wonderful than thought, even the power 
that quickens it. Nor does the whole world desire to go 
back to those old masters; they were superior to the people 
of their age; they lifted the world upward but not to the 
loftiest places. 

But where is now the highest table-land that inspired 
thought has reached? Where are the fullest reveal ments 
of Grod? Where is the most perfect code of mor«l law? 
The broadest scolarship and the profoundest wisdom of this 
age, point to the old Testament and the New and say 
tliere it is. 

Possibly, inspirations more intense than these, revela- 
tions more wonderful than these may come in the future; 
but man need not get nervous for their coming; it is from 
the high places of these, that he shall discover the golden 
summit of the loftiest mountains of some terra incognita still 
farther away; here are all the theism and moralism that 
man can master at present. 

The world may have its side-issues, orthodoxy its con- 
flicts, the Church its quarrels, dogma its heresies, ami sci- 
ence its flings at religion, yet, the Diety that the Bible re- 
veals, and the morality that it requires are, a platform on 
which all can stand, a religion that all can adopt; when 
men shall have become " perfect, even as the Father which 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 11 

is in Heaven is perfect, 1 ' then they may perhaps, look for 
further revelations. 

The Bible is a whole mountain range of inspiration. 
It is the history of the gradual revealment of God, and of 
the unfoldment of His righteousness. It contains the best 
thoughts of the best thinkers of the ages that preceded this. 
Its later are much in advance of its earlier utterances, not 
contradicting but perfecting them; and, the world of mod- 
ern thought has moved so far beyond the orbit of the an- 
cients that, were God to be judged of by the peculiar meth- 
ods and symbols that were employed in the infancy of the 
race, w. should have very erroneous, not to say grotesque 
notions of'Diety. 

The world to-day does not need a fiery Sinai to demon- 
strate the powerlessness of idols; nor consecrated altars, 
ceremonious priests, and unblemished offerings to teach 
that God is holy and that his children should be pure. It 
is not necessary to slaughter a lamb or an ox to con- 
vince us that sin deserves punishment. Those antiquated 
forms, ceremonies and symbols awakened in the mind 
emotions ot awe and reverence, made Jehovah to stand 
forth crowned with the dignity of absolute holiness; and 
taught, not that Diety is propitiated by blood, and by blood 
only, but that a sinning soul is deserving of death; and 
that God in the greatness of His love, and the fulness of 
His wisdom would provide a means of redemption. 

The Levitical law was the world's spiritual "school- 
master; 1 ' through it has come our purest Theism. Those 
ancient sacrifices were the pictures in the primary books of 
human ethics; and should men ever know more about God 
than they do, those obsolete old symbols would still be the 
ABC of its knowledge, and not of its knowledge only but 
also of its morality. 



12 THE MOUNT 0¥ INSPIRATION. 

When the revelation of Diety was complete; when 
every essential moral truth had been grasped; when an em- 
pire for the world's sake had learned the important lesson 
that Grod is propitious, then the Mosaic symbols melted 
away; and the Eternal All Wise, stood forth, a pure spirit- 
ual conception in the human mind: the intellectual scaf- 
folding fell from the infinite idea that inspired thought had 
built, and universal Love and Intelligence appeared in 
everlasting fullness unobscured by any earthly splendor. 

Christ is the most perfect revelation of Grod ; but that 
revelation is not fully understood : Christ crucified will 
always be a stumbling block until the whole world shall 
recognize Deity in him. Christ was not a creature appoint- 
ed by the the Creator to suffering and Death, in order that 
man should love the divinity who made the appointment ; 
in such case we should pity the victim and hate the Deity. 
But Christ is Jehovah himself, in self-sacrifice a ad suffer- 
ing, manifesting eternal love in an omnipotent attempt 
to reconcile the world unto himself. He is the Lord stoop- 
ing to our need and lifting us up; he is "the branch 1 ' let 
down from the tree of life, by which the trailing down- 
trodden vine of humanity, might twine its tendrils of faith 
and affection about him, and thus rise again to the bosom 
of the Father. 

If there can be found anywhere an exhibition of love 
more complete, a revelation more sublime, and made by 
methods more simple and successful, the church, nay the 
whole world, by every deeper longing of poor appealing 
humanity demands that it shall be pointed out. Atheism 
cannot do it, skepticism cannot, nor all the rude jokes and 
gibes of sneering infidelity; but in the presence of this 
truth, God in Christ, each heart can feelingly exclaim "0 ! 
the depth of the riches, both of the Wisdom and Knowl- 
edge of God." 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 13 

In conclusion, are we under no obligation to conform 
to the patterns that have been revealed? If there are mo- 
ments of illumination and of clearer spiritual vision, the 
thoughts that are then awakened must be the major prem- 
ises of man's supreme convictions : we are all superstitious 
enough to regard them with sacredness; every man feels 
disposed to preserve his best thoughts and to give serious 
heed to those convictions that come to the soul in its pur- 
est moods, for, we know not to what heavenly proportions 
they may expand, or what potent influences may be folded 
up in them. 

They think best who think amid the universe of mor- 
al truths +hat are engermed in the Bible; they climb high- 
est who step first on this rock; they are most perfect who 
make all things conform to this pattern. The erection of 
a Tabernacle was an important work, it was a type of the 
Temple and of Heaven, it could not have been made with- 
out a pattern; but we are builders of Temples that will 
continue when every material beauty has passed away; our 
moral characters must stand eternally ; shall we attempt to 
build without a pattern? but the model is found nowhere 
save on the summit of this spiritual Sinai; are we willing 
to climb the Mount and secure it ? 

Do you want a theology? and you do, for every heart 
wants God, here is the pattern, in the scripture is revealed 
humanity's best concept of God; the world therefore owes 
it to the integrity of its own intelligence to worship Him. 

Do you want Salvation? and you do, every soul that is 
conscious of sin inquires what must I do to be saved? In 
the Bible is the only plan the world ever knew, carefully 
unfolded and earnestly recommended; how absurd then to 
quarrel with it, rather should our scheme conform to the 
divine plan. 

Do you want hope ? and you do, then, you can never 



14 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION. 



be satisfied until your hope has measured up to the fulness 
of the pattern revealed in the mount, it is a hope bright 
with joy aud big with eternal lite. 

There are those who accept the Bible as a history, as a 
book of instruction, and even as the greatest inspiration of 
the ages, but who, in their hearts, reject the Christ whom 
the Bible reveals — believe me — Christ and the Scripture 
stand or fall together; like that celebrated shield of old, 
which was so made that the name of the artist could not be 
moved without destroying the shield. So we cannot accept 
the Bible and reject Christ, nor accept Christ and reject the 
Bible, they are one, and accord with the pattern revealed in 
the mount, we must make our choice to correspond. 

By the purest impulses of our hearts, by the loftiest 
convictions of our reason, by whatever is lovely on earth 
and perfect in Heaven, we are led to search these Scriptures, 
for the ideal character they contain, for the salvation which 
they assure, and for the eternal life that they promise. 

If ever man was inspired, if ever he had a noble 
thought or a holy inspiration, if ever he was restful in 
trouble or uncomplaining in affliction, if ever he was hope- 
ful in darkness, if ever to him Death seemed to be but the 
pearly gateway to everlasting glory, it was when his spirit 
communed with the spirit of revelation, and according as 
he climbed to the brow of this God-touched Sinai. Well 
might Sir Walter Scott declare — 

" Within this ample volume lies 

The mystery of mysteries; 

Happiest they of all the human race, 

To whom their God has given grace, 

To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 

To lift the latch, to force the way; 

And better had they ne'er been born, 

That read to doubt, or read to scorn." 



GROANS AND GLORY. 



For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: 
not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
mortality might be swallowed up of life. 

Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God. 
—II Cor. 5. 4-5. 

Compared with that which is unseen that which is 
seen is small: You do not at present see Milwaukee, nor 
the States that surround Wisconsin, nor those on the At- 
lantic coast, nor those on the Pacific slope; you do not see 
the oceans that impinge on our shores, nor the great con- 
tinents beyond the seas, nor the icebergs of the Arctic cir- 
cles, nor the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics; you sim- 
ply believe that they are. We do not see the stars, do not 
know that we shall see them when the sun goes down to- 
night; we do not know that we ever saw a star, the most 
that can be said is x that the effects of a few quivering beams 
o' light have perhaps been seen; it maybe that the worlds 
from which those light-beams flashed sunk in the sea of 
oblivion a hundred years ago, yet we believe in the stars and 
believe also in light. Man has never seen a soul, a mind, a 
thought, an emotion, or the essence ot the commonest 



16 GROANS AND GLORY. 

atom that exists. I never yet saw myself, or any other 
person; I have been the recipient of many impressions, but 
I am doubtful whether I ever saw anything or not; I never 
saw Life, or Death, or what is beyond the grave; I never 
saw God; in fact my blindness and my ignorance utterly 
confound me; I am overwhelmed with the thought that 
the unseen is greater, more important, potent and real than 
the seen. 

Man waits to investigate and compass that which is 
invisible; life is made up of progressions from the seen to 
the unseen; such is the case in education, in business, in 
agriculture. The unseen or the unknown does not dampen 
human courage, nor dishearten man's intrepidity; man 
stands on the threshhold of every terra incognita and de- 
mands that it shall give up its secrets; at his mandate the 
bowels of the earth rush out, the sea unlocks its hidden 
treasuries, the atmosphere divulges its mysteries, and unseen 
empires disclose their wonders. He interrogates death and 
requires to know whence it came and what its mission. He 
is ready to extort the secrets of the grave; he knocks at 
the gates of the empire of spirits and waits for a revela- 
tion; and to a Grod unseen he cries, in the anxious words 
of Moses, u I beseech thee show me thy glory." 

That man thus searches for the invisbile is prophetic, 
it suggests that there must be something existing beyond 
the bounds of the seen. There is not a word or an instinct 
among the lower orders for which Nature has not made a 
provision, thus, hunger is prophetic of food, thirst is pro- 
phetic of water, weariness is suggestive of rest, and in- 
quisitive ness of knowledge; so, too, the heart-nature of man 
is the exponent of love and friendship. If, then, humani" 
ty, by some inherent impulse, by some innate inspiration, 
is seeking for that which is unseen, eager for that which 
things visible cannot afford him then, he is to himself a 



GROANS AND GLORY. 17 



prophecy of coming benedictions; lie is greater than he 
seems to be, greater than his earthly surroundings are, greater 
than his present knowledge, greater than time, great and 
glorious as the pregnant possibilities of eternity. 

If the little birds which in summer fill our woods with 
song, are impelled by their inborn instincts, when the au- 
tumn leaves are falling, to seek and find some sunny south- 
land where frosts never come and flowers bloom perennial 
so, methinks, my hopes and longings shall not mock and 
disappoint me; sure as there is sunshine and summer-time, 
for the birds there is a Heaven for my soul; I may not see 
it now, but when comes the frost of Death I shall unfold 
my wing and soar away; the unseen will by and by become 
visible; what is'now a dream will soon be a reality; every 
inborn want is a prophecy of supply; "what thou knowest 
not now, thou shalt know hereafter.' ' 

In the unseen man discovers his supreme ideals; in 
short, it is the finding of the highest reason that in the un- 
seen is God. But if a God, he must have a purpose, every- 
thing must have a meaning; Omnipotence, Wisdom, Love, 
Justice mean something; nothing has been ordered in vain; 
each world has a history and a mission; each living thing is 
pregnant with eternal significance; there is not a leaf trem- 
blng on its parent stem but works out the purpose of its 
being; all things work together to consummate the designs 
of a Father's love; the trials I endure, the tears I shed, the 
sorrows I feel, the pains I suffer, each has its meaning and 
its benevolent ministry. 

What may be the purposes of God in regard to the 

atoms and molecules of matter we may not know, but it is 

declared that the good of those who love God, entered into 

the eternal councils of his love, and that "all things work 

together for good to thein that love Gol. 11 Now, therefore? 



18 GROANS AND GLORY. 

bearing in mind the fact of the unseen, the thought that 
God is in the universe, and that God is working with refer- 
ence to a purpose, let us try to evolve the thought and sug- 
gestion of the text, and notice 

I. THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF OUR EARTHLY LIFE. 

It is suggested that we are in a " tabernacle 1 '. The 
apostle alludes to the human body, it is regarded as a tent, a 
booth, or a tabernacle, that is, a place for temporary resi- 
dence. The idea may have been suggested to Paul by his 
own profession, that of a tent-maker; or possibly he bor- 
rowed a figure from the ancient Jewish Tabernacle; or we 
might say that such imagery was common to the Hebrew 
mode of expression; thus, a veil was called "the house of 
the face 11 , a glove Avas a house for the hand, a shoe was the 
house of the foot; we use the same figure when speaking of 
clothing as a habit; but the idea is that of a temporary pur- 
pose; we are hi a tabernacle; this body is a house that will 
soon wear out, a tent that must shortly be taken down, a 
booth that the storms of time will in a little while render 
useless; our bodies must dissolve, like worn-out clothing they 
will be cast aside, like old gloves they will be slipped off and 
thrown away, like old shoes they will be discarded. 

Such being the case, what is the object of life? Why 
have a body at all if it must be cast off so soon ? The al- 
lotted three score years and ten pass away " like a tale that 
is told", or "as a dream when one awaketh' 1 ; there is not a 
day or an hour when our earthly existence may be said to be 
secure; the question "is life worth living? 11 may well be 
asked; can it be that God has a benevolent design with re- 
gard to a life that blossoms to-day and perishes to-morrow r ? 
I am nothing but a worthless ephemeron, what does God 
care for me ? 

We do not know all, perhaps we know none of the 



GROAKS AND GLORY. 19 

reasons why.it is necessary that man should mingle with 
matter; but of one fact we are certain, namely, that matter 
is the base on which human life is built. It is said that 
Enoch passed to Heaven, but did not go down into the 
grave, and that Elijah ascended but not by the way of Death. 
Yet Enoch and Elijah each possessed a material body, and 
it is suggested that even Grod himself could not assume our 
manhood without assuming our flesh. 

It seems therefore necessary, for some reason, per- 
haps unknown to us, that we should be born into a material 
world, be possessed of matter for ,a time, be nourished by 
those material elements in the midst of which we are placed; 
that creation should combine its forces for our development; 
that the process of building up should be begun though it 
continue only a little while; three score years, or two score, 
or one decade,* or one year, or one brief day, the length of 
time is nothing, the essential thing is that we inhabit this 
tabernacle, that we should be " in this bod} r pent.'" 

As the seed takes to itself a life from the soil, appro- 
priates something of the essence of the rain-drop and the 
dew, the darkness, the tempest and the sunbeam, then, 
rooted and grounded in the earth, it lifts up a stem, puts 
forth a bud, a leaf, a flower full of fragrance, " a thing of 
beauty, a joy forever, 11 so from the mass of matter in which 
we are rooted we may derive some life, some power, some 
beauty or quality germane to our individuality, essential to 
the possibility of our nobler being. 

When this has been accomplished, whether it require a 
hundred days or a hundred years, what use have we of a 
body more ? Considering, therefore, the brevity of an earthly 
existence, do you ask is life worth living ? I answer yes, it 
is the very base of immortal being, it is the source whence 
comes the essence of self -hood, it is the bud that will develop 



20 GROANS AND GLORY. 

into the flower, without it there could not be the bloom and 
beauty everlasting. 

If matter is heavy and grievous it is not long that it 
must be carried; if the body is racked with pain and corrupt 
with disease, its shuffling off is not far away; if this earthly 
house should be storm-beaten and time-worn, not long and 
we shall pass from the old house into the new; in a little 
while we shall strike tents and move to more inviting scenes, 
and there may after all be a joyful note in the fact that "our 
hearts, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to 
the grave." 

The philosophy of Christianity suggests that the body 
is not the man, he only lives in it, it is a tabernacle, man is su- 
perior to the house in which he lives, while his temporary 
residence is decaying an enduring palace is being built for 
him, that palace will be complete when this cabin has served its 
time, until that is ready we must abide in this. The earthly 
tabernacle may require a good deal of patching up, so do all 
the residences of earth, the sills may rot, the rafters break, 
it may become defaced and disfigured, it may be smitten 
with the lightning, or scorched with fires, it may be swept 
from its foundations or sent to roll and tumble in the flood, 
but when it shall have served its purpose, the resident will 
have stepped out, the soul will have reached a shore where 
fire, flood and decay cannot come. I cannot see, therefore, 
that the divine management is at fault, God is among the 
atoms making them work for our good. Notice 

II. THE BURDENS THAT OPPRESS US IN THE PRESENT. 

" We who are in this tabernacle do groan, being bur- 
dened. 11 We have been perplexed on account of the transi- 
toriness of our earthly existence; but conflict, sorrow and 
pain utterly confound us, they have made us wish that we 
had never been born; and men under the pressure of their 
burdens have declared " there is no God 11 . And who shall 



GEOANS AND GLORY. 21 

solve for us the enigma of suffering? The very thought of 
the fearful struggle that is always going on strikes us with 
terror. 

" The whole creation travaileth together in pain; 11 all 
life is a battle, the strong trample down the weak, atoms 
clash against each other, the oak wrestles with the tempest, 
the flower is in conflict with the weed, the air swarms with 
hostile multitudes, the very rocks are sepulchres, the soils 
are the ashes of heroes that fell in battle, the sea also is a 
grave vast and deep; and man, since first he stepped on the 
earth, has waged a perpetual warfare, his struggles and sac- 
rifices, his pains and sorrows have marked the progress of 
knowledge and the advance of civilization; and to-day, as 
ever, he shoulders his burden and goes forth to the fight. 

Even innocent little children have their burdens; we 
have seen them languishing in sickness, we have heard them 
cry out with pain; "'we are born unto trouble; 1 ' it pursues 
us even to old age. The stress and strain of life are real, 
terrible sometimes, bleaching the hair, wrinkling the brow, 
softening the brain. When we realize it, it seems that a 
wail of woe is going up from the crushed heart of humanity 
and sounding in the ear of God. The picture as the apostle 
drew it is dreadful, " the whole creation groaneth and trav- 
aileth together in pain until now. 11 

Wiry all this ? It seems sometimes that if the world 
ever knew a Providence it is now withdrawn; if on this 
earth the hand divine ever moved it must now be paralized; 
if ever there was an overruling Deity now he has ceased to 
reign. The atheist haunts us with the question " where is 
thy God? 11 Why all this? 

It would seem that with life so brief, and burdens so 
numerous, an earthly existence is not worth having; nor is 
it, if there is no God; cast him out then indeed evil out- 
weighs the good, and the condition of man is the most 



GROAtfS AKD GLORY. 



unhappy that can be conceived; but grant that God is in this 
empire of pain, that he steps softly amid our woes, that an 
unseen presence is behind the shadows, that beside human 
weakness is omnipotence, that under the watchful e} T e of 
infinite love all this is permitted for our discipline, for our 
good; then a ray of light shines upon our gloom; then we 
see that it is possible after all that these afflictions may 
" work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory 11 . 

Such a plan is analagous with the plan unfolded by 
nature. In that wonderful realm one force or element is 
made to balance another. The sea and the atmosphere, the 
air and the earth, the animal and the vegetable, the vegeta- 
ble and the mineral, the cold and the heat, the opposite 
poles of the magnet, the centrifugal and centripital forces 
of the heavens, seem to be related to and mutually balance 
each other; such is the constitution of things that the law 
of compensation prevails. 

Paul recognized a similar plan in the unfoldments of 
Providence, in the kingdom of God's moral rule; he saw 
spiritual experiences in pairs or opposites, one experience 
compensated by another, so he speaks of being troubled but 
not distressed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but 
not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, delivered unto 
death yet living, afflicted and yet glorified. Then again, 
the apostle balances one thing with another, things seen 
with things unseen, things temporal with things eternal, 
things dissolvable with things perpetual, houses made bj T 
human hands with houses made by divine power, and things 
on earth with things in Heaven. So in the text, by the 
side of dying groans he places immortal glory; he intimates 
that these earthly things, these temporalities precede, pre- 
dict, and are to be sublimated into eternal things. 



GROANS AND GLORY. 23 

Thus, if in nature, one law, or force, or element is 
made to balance another, why not in Grace? As the min- 
eral is prophetic of the vegetable, and the vegetable of the 
animal, so we expect that the natural will foreshadow the 
spiritual. Is not sin a silent testimony in favor of holiness ? 
Is not suffering a prophecy of rejoicing? And so Death 
itself, must in the reason of the case be a testimony in favor 
of immortality. 

God has put us into contact witli matter that we may 
subdue it, he leads us into the realm of suffering that we 
may triumph over it ; had I never borne a burden or felt the 
sting of pain, I should never have known the possibilities 
of my own being; every sorrowful experience convinces me 
that I am not a rock but a life, and that I am a creature of 
the most delicate susceptibilities, it makes me tender, sym- 
pathetic, brotherly, loving; and having triumphed in the 
kingdom of groans and burdens, God leads me onward 
through the gates of Death, into the empire of spirits, and 
bids me win immortal laurels there; so that we may learn 
some day that every pain produced a pearl for our crown- 
ing. Consider 

III. THE ATTITUDE OF MANKIND WITH REGARD TO THEIR 
BURDENS. 

Do they crush all the manhood out of us? Is it true 
that the race generally is ready to declare that its condition 
is the worst possible ? Should we advocate the doctrine of 
universal suicide? The Apostle Paul did not so think; he 
stated the case just as it is; he conceded that ,w we who are in 
this tabernacle do groan being burdened,' 1 but denies that 
there is any feverish anxiety to "shuffle off this mortal coil 1 ', 
he says ; " not that we would be unclothed. 11 

Nor is there hi the present age. any more than there 
was in the apostolic age, any general nervousness to pull 



24 GROANS AND GLORY. 



down the tabernacle and be gone. One man in ten thousand 
may be a suicide, but there are nine thousand, nine hundred 
and ninety-nine in every ten thousand who are ready to be- 
lieve that the suicide for the time-being must have been in- 
sane. We read of Tay bridge disasters, Winter Palace ex- 
plosions, Nihilistic murders, famines, pestilences, conflagra- 
tions and all such catastrophies that sweep men into the 
grave by the score, and the hundreds, not with rejoicing but 
with horror; the world would avoid these things if it could; 
men submit to the inevitable, die in horrid accidents, still 
they prefer life; we say to-day as Paul said "not that we 
would be unclothed". 

On the contrary there is an eagerness to live ; we shrink 
from the shock of mortal dissolution. The deepest, the 
most earnest want of the human soul is for a continuance 
of existence; life may be brief but it is precious; it may be 
only a bubble but we believe that the bubble contains a 
pearl; such an inspiration is man's desire for life that all the 
pessimistic philosophy on earth does not discourage him; 
with undesparing fortitude the race lives on; with utter 
contempt of trouble men press onward in life's highway; 
with sublime heroism they enlist in the fight for existence; 
though the foot-prints of the generations have been stained 
Avith blood; though their backs broke beneath the crushing 
weight of burdens; though human hearts may have been 
pierced through with many sorrows; though the fathers 
halted and went down to death, yet nothing daunted their 
sons press onward in the same path,- with similar burdens 
and experiences to a similar destiny; there is in humanity 
no indication of a desire to be unrobed of life, to pass out 
of being, but there is a longing to be clothed upon, to find 
existence constantly intensifying, to see as the apostle ex- 
presses it " mortally swallowed up of life. 11 



GROANS AND GLORY. 25 

Whence comes this sublime arrousement? Not from 
our pain, not from our sorrow, not from death, nor even 
from our existence in itself considered, but from without us, 
evidently it is the arrousement produced by a living God in 
humanity. He has ordained that * we should sometimes 
groan in this tabernacle, that toiling hands shall be bur- 
dened, and weary hearts heavily laden, in order that our 
thought and hope may be lifted Heavenward, that we may 
be able to look toward the unseen and the eternal, and ear- 
nestly desire to be clothed with our house which is from 
above. 

It is then, in accordance with the divine plan that we 
shall never reach our ideals here, never see in this world 
hope brighten into full fruition, never compass our possibil- 
ities; we are being ever led onward, the rainbow is always 
ahead of us, if it arches the hills to-day it will encircle the 
mountains or even the heavens to-morrow. Life is ever 
advancing, Love always reaches outwardly, Faith looks 
ahead; and because there is a divine power behind us, a di- 
vine thought within us, and a Fathers love before us, we 
bravely lift our burdens and press into the evermore. 

Because God is with us, we touch matter and subdue it, 
paiii touches us and we triumph over it. Death encompases 
us and we conquer it and soon we shall enter the realm 
of spirits and reign over it; God has so created us that we 
can anchor nowhere but in Heaven — so "we walk by faith 
not by sight, 1 ' and " he that hath wrought us for the self- 
same thing is God.' 1 

The conclusion therefore is, though life is built on a 
material base it is all right; though the scaffolding fall sud- 
denly or gradually it is all right; though we who are in 
this tabernacle do groan being burdened, it is all right; 
though the grave is before us it is all right; God's manage- 
ment is wise, under the direction of his love all things are 



26 GROANS AND GLORY. 

working together for our good, eternal glory must be the 
outcome; u He that hath wrought us for the self -same 
thing is God. 1 ' 

You are troubled about the unseen, you ask yourself 
a thousand perplexing questions, dear soul your faith in God 
meets your interrogatories and solves your doubts ; and the 
Gospel touches all the mysteries of earth with a heavenly 
radiance. 

Have you sorrow? then let me invite you to the foun- 
tain of healing, in its waters life never grows old: the love 
of God heals your heart wound; immortality makes you 
master of } r our sorrows; live in the light of the Gospel and 
the world, and time, and pain, and death, shall be under 
your feet at last. 




THE GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A 
TROUBLED HEART. 



Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also 

in me. 
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not 

so, 1 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and 

receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be 

also —John 14 1-3. 

Ever since that fatal clay when in Eclen, man ignored 
the divine plan and "became a law unto himself 1 ' there has 
been an abundance of trouble in the world. The earth, the 
domestic hearth, the religious altar, the elements, society, 
the shepherd's tent, the palace, the municipality, and law 
itself .became a reason for disturbance, the cause though 
not the seat of trouble. 

There was trouble in the bosoms of the patriarchs; 
there was trouble in the breasts of prophets; there was 
trouble in the hearts of kings; there was trouble among 
apostles; Christ himself was "troubled in spirit." Trouble 
seems to be the birth-right of humanity; "Man is born 
unto trouble as the sparks fly upward; 1 ' it is the legacy of 



28 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 



nations; I have a troubled heart, you have a troubled heart. 
Whatever disturbs the tranquility of our emotions, our 
feelings, that is trouble. 

Where is the seat of trouble? "It cometh not forth of 
the dust," "it springeth not out of the ground. 1 ' It is not 
in the howling wind, nor in the beating storm; it is not in 
the thunder, or the the lightning or the flood, or the flame; 
it is not in toil or poverty, or disease, or pain, or bereave- 
ment, or death. Sweep the material universe through, and 
through, and you shall not find trouble; yet mankind is 
born unto it; if man were not, trouble were not; it has 
no empire, no throne, no sway anywhere save in the hu- 
man heart. 

Trouble is disturbance in the hidden recesses of self- 
hood. The lower orders suffer pain but they are not 
troubled. Man is susceptible of trouble because he has a 
heart-nature, a soul. If there is no life beyond our troubles 
must die with us; if there is a remedy for trouble it cannot 
be produced by a transformation of the Cosmos; the cure 
must come by the application of some sovereign balm to 
each individual heart. 

Now if trouble is enthroned within, man must look 
to himself as the cause. Why then am I in trouble ? Why 
have you a troubled heart ? Is it not because affairs are not 
regulated according to our preconceived plans and notions? 
because the universe moves on, and law operates, and man 
thinks and talks and acts despite my agitated feelings, and 
contrary to my will and my wish ? If it were possible to 
bring my heart-nature into harmony with all things uni- 
versal and human, should I be disturbed? should 1 have 
trouble ? 

The cause therefore is inadequate confidence; I fear 
that the laws of nature will somehow work me harm; I fear 
that the contradictions of men will produce injury to me; 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 29 

I fancy ,if I could only manage all things myself I should 
be in absolute repose; but this is impossible; must I then, 
without respite, carry through life, my crushing burden of 



sorrow 



Many remedies have been proposed. The modern Pes- 
simist advises the immediate and general suicide of the race. 
•The old Stoics recommended cold, grim, stony endurance. 
The ancient Persians advised submission, they declared that 
to pass between the mill-stones is necessary, it is impossible 
to avoid it, the only way for us to do is to march straight 
into the hopper, with the hope that perhaps the mill-stones 
will burst some day. Others have prescribed medicine for 
a disturbed heart, and the Epicureans said, " Let us eat 
drink and be merry for to-morrow we die." 

Need I say that each of the proposed remedies has 
been tried and has failed? With suicidal intent men have 
stood, weapon in hand, ready to annihilate self and trouble 
at once, and something has suggested that perhaps leaping 
out of present troubles, we " fly to others that we know 
not of." Men have stood defiant as rocks to breast the 
storms of life, and while no complaint fell from their lips, 
the disturbance within arose and raged like the restless 
sea. The race has been passing between the upper and 
nether mill-stones, lo these long centuries, still the 
crushing goes on, and there is no promise of respite. Men 
have drugged and doctored but trouble does not cease; they 
have eaten and drunken but sorrow has multiplied. Thus 
each prescription has failed, indeed the proposed remedy 
has been worse than the disease. 

But there is one, just one remedy that has not failed, 
that proposed and provided by the Lord Jesus Christ. "Let 
not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God; believe also 
in me; in my Father's house are many mansions; if 



30 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 

it were not so, I would have told you, I go to pre- 
pare a place for you, and if I go and prepare 
a place for you, I will come again, and receive you 
unto myself, that where I am, there ye may he also." 

Let us then consider this Gospel remedy for a troubled 
heart. What are its elements? 

I. SELF-CONTROL. 

Men have entertained very strange opinions in re- 
gard to the Gospel and those principles that represent it. 

"That Church," said one, "is not worth a chew of Tobacco." 
My friend there may be some portions of the peculiar creed 
of that Church, that you may feel called upon to criticise, 
but if you are an honest man, you cannot censure the 
moral character it requires. u Is that the Methodist 
Church? 1 ' said a wag, as he pointed to a rude building for 
a derrick that had been erected over an artesian well. The 
question was meant sarcastically. I said yes, for there flows 
from the Methodist Church, as from an artesian well, 
streams of refreshing and cleansing for the people and the 
nations. 

It is also objected that the Church does very well for 
women and children; that the Gospel it teaches may touch 
the more tender emotions of the human heart, but to awa- 
ken the more manly and noble qualities of the race it is 
useless. Surely such innuendoes are the results of ignor- 
ance; prejudice or malice aforethought, for the Gospel not 
only crowns woman with a complete womanhood, but it 
has planned for man a pertect manhood. Of those influ- 
ences that shaped the character of a Miriam, a Ruth, an 
Esther and a Mary, no thoughtful person need be ashamed; 
and a large souled Abraham, a meek but manly Moses, a 
glorious Joshua, an unearthly Elijah, and a stirring and 
resolute Paul are equally worthy of admiration. Indeed it 



GOSPEL REMEDY EOR A TROUBLED HEART. 31 

cannot be questioned that Scripture, Christianity, and the 
Christ, seek to secure for the world, a holy, a well balanced 
and a thoroughly rounded nianhqod. 

One essential element of manliness is self-control; 
recognizing individuality, personal responsibility, and ability, 
the Grospel puts each man on his own base, and says, " he 
that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a 
city 11 . While it provides the opportunity for salvation, it 
says "work out your own, 11 "take heed unto thyself, 11 "keep 
the body under, 11 attain "unto the stature of a perfect man, 11 
and even Christ, though he accomplished so much for the 
world, did not presume on the passivity of the race, but 
recognized the worth of determined self -hood; therefore 
when the Disciples were in trouble, he did not say go and 
weep over your misfortunes, and give vent to your feelings, 
but " let not your heart be troubled 11 , that is, whatever be 
your disappointments hold self in control, keep your feel- 
ings and passions down, rise above disturbance with a sub- 
lime all- conquering manhood, let not trouble master you 
but master trouble, resolve to be brave, do not trample on 
your heart-nature, but " keep the heart with all diligence 11 , 
let your heart be not that of a child but a man; "let not your 
heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." 

There is some comfort to one who can control himself 
in trouble. The engineer must be conscious of a thrill of 
inspiration when, with his hand on the lever, he knows that 
the great powerful locomotive is simply the servant of his 
will. Is there not pleasure also for the man who controls 
himself? Every man knows by experience that, when in 
the battles of life, he has conquered himself, the victory is 
more than half won; Christ knew this also, therefore he 
s aid "let not your heart be troubled. 11 

Thus the prime element in the Gospel remedy for a 
troubled heart is self-control. It is not proposed to do away 



32 GOSPEL REMEDY POR A TROUBLED HEART. 

with a single disturbance provoking cause; nor to provide 
immunity from law: nor to make the poor rich, the illiterate 
learned, the sick well, nor to restore the physically dead to 
life; but the remedy promises that the soul may harmlessly 
tide itself over its own troubles, if the heart is only pre- 
pared to meet them. It does not teach courage once and 
done with it, but that the battle for self-mastery must be 
continued, the heart must never allow itself to be overpow- 
ered, a sublime purpose of victory must characterize all 
men, everywhere and always. 

This, then, is the basic element in the remedy, there 
is of course much more to follow, but this makes practical 
what is to come. The Gospel cannot build up a character 
on nothing; it must find in humanity a sterling something 
for a foundation: it must ally itself with whatsoever is 
greatest and grandest in the human soul; the fabric will ex- 
pand as these foundation elements are strengthened; you can- 
not make a man of faith out of one who is changeable as 
the wind and fickle as the sea. Therefore as a prerequisite 
to the sublime overpowering fa it h to which Christ directed 
his Disciples, he said, a let not your heart be troubled." 

II. FAITH IN GOD. U TE BELIEVE IN GOD." 

Faith is an universal element in human experience ; it is 
what we live by; every body has faith; brutes live by what 
the}' see, hear, smell, taste, feel: man lives by what he 
thinks. There are men who desire to make brutes of them- 
selves and to live simply by what the senses can bring to 
them; in short, they say, we believe or live by only what we 
know. Strictly speaking we know but little, we do not know 
ourselves, nor each other, nor the things that are about us; 
we see superficially, know only in part, we simply believe or 
form an opinion in regard to them. We believe in places 
we never saw, in histories that were made before we were 
born; we believe that the moon is 240,000 miles away from 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 33 

the earth.; we believe in business and it is a belief that 
quickens our pulses and stirs our activities ; we risk fortunes 
on our faith. Our faith is a mighty impulse pushing us 
forward steadily as if we actually kneiv. Indeed, we often 
say " I know", when we do not know, we believe. We 
could not be rational and have no faith: wherever is intelli- 
gence there is belief. 

It is the privilege of these heart-natures of ours to be- 
lieve in God. Faith in God is as universal as faith itself. 
God is a necessity of our thought. If I reason him away 
I must invent something to take his place. You cannot 
find in the whole world a man whose heart-nature is athe- 
istic ; we would be unwilling to venture such an assertion in 
regard to his head. Your belief may not be exactly the 
same as mine ; and all faiths may differ in some particulars, 
but all of us from the ignorant savage to the most cultured 
philosopher behove in God. In every consciousness lies the 
belief that there is authority and supremacy somewhere. 

What if there were no God! if the heart were doomed 
to drop its faith and cease its trust, who could draw the mel- 
ancholy picture ? Not only would the great world be or- 
phaned; not only would confusion reign, but the very 
foundation on which we stand would be dropped out; 
trouble would deepen into blank and utter despair; existence 
would be a fearful plunge into a hell of darkness and 
eternal woe. 

It is a great privilege to believe. Better believe in an 
universal force, an all pervading law than believe in noth- 
ing. Better have the faith of a Pagan than no faith. Bet- 
ter be a Deist than an Atheist. Our troubled hearts fasten 
to this idea of God and are comforted. The disciples be- 
lieved in God and it was a balm for their troubles. The 
old Jews believed in God and they were comforted; to be- 
lieve as they did is a cordial for our fears. They believed 



34 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 

that the world was built and is governed by God; " that in 
him we live, and move, and have our being; 1 ' that in him 
are Fatherhood and Providence; that he is inffnitely good, 
wise and powerful; that he brings forth the seasons in their 
order, spreads the stars in their glory, commands the desti- 
nies of men and nations, and that " he is a re warder of all 
who diligently seek him 11 ; this gave them comfort and con- 
solation, it made them sing "the Lord is my Shepherd, I 
shall not want 11 . 

When I can take in this thought in all its fullness, 
how it inspires me with hope. 1 believe in God, he is 
greater than I, therefore he can help me in my perplexity. 
He has a strong arm, I may lean upon it. He made the 
world, it serves my interest, therefore he is my friend. He 
sees further than I, perhaps then beyond present disturb- 
ance he sees rest, it may be better after all that I should fight 
and overcome; if I love him perhaps it will be all right in the 
end. If only I shall love him so well as to be in harmony 
with all his laws and plans and providences, if my thought 
shall sink into his, and my will melt into his, then ''all 
things shall work together for my good, 11 and my anxious, 
troubled heart shall rest. 

This is a wonderful comfort; with an unwavering con- 
fidence in God as my friend, my King, my Father, I can 
say, burn out ye suns, fall ye worlds, howl ye winds, strike 
ye lightnings, fade ye fields, perish ye flocks and herds, fill 
up ye graves and crumble poor body of clay. " yet will I 
rejoice in God, I will joy in the God of my salvation; 11 
nothing can hurt or injure me if God is my friend; the lar- 
ger, the more perfect our faith in God, the stronger be- 
comes our assurance, we rest as we believe. 

III. BELIEF IN" CHRIST. " BELIEVE ALSO IN" ME." 

Belief in God is fundamental; with this faith the soul 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 35 

finds a sure foundation; finding God it finds an explana- 
tion of, and an author for, the universe; it finds also a 
father for the spirit, and the very wisdom, love and leader- 
ship that the heart-nature needs. Now, Jews and Deists 
stop right here, but Christianity goes a step farther, and 
seeks a deeper and more perfect manifestation of God; it 
reaches beyond Paganism, beyond Philosophy, beyond 
Judaism, beyond the revealments of natural Religion, and 
requires belief in Christ also, who was " God manifest in 
the flesh." 

This utterance, "believe also in me," is the whole 
Gospel in four words; if this requirement is not imperative 
then the Gospel is not necessary: by these words Christ 
put himself side by side with God; if these words are true 
he is divine, if they are false he was a demon. He directed 
the faith of mankind toward himself as he recognized that 
faith going out toward God; he said be not troubled be- 
cause I die, death cannot prevent my work, by death I con- 
quer death, therefore " believe also in me." 

Christ did not say believe in the sermon on the mount, 
believe in what I tell you about the Father, believe in the 
doctrines that my disciples shall preach, or in those that 
uninspired men may proclaim, and that shall be sufficient 
for your faith; but he said "believe also in me;" believe in 
me as a person, in me as a life, in me as a power, in me as 
the embodiment of truth ; do not cast God out of you faith 
by any means, but take me in, your faith in God is incom- 
plete if you leave me out; I represent a phase of diety that 
Natural Religion does not reveal, that Theism does not ap- 
prehend, that Judaism only faintly foreshadowed; beyond 
Creatorship, Legislation, Providence, there is Love, Pardon, 
Reconciliation, Salvation, Sanctification. I am the mani- 
festation of God in the forgivness of sin, in the work of 
reconciliation, in redemption, and in regeneration, for 



36 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 

u there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God 
which worketh all in all," therefore while you believe in 
God in the old Jewish sense, believe also in God as the au- 
thor and finisher of human redemption, or what is the same 
" believe also in me." 

But can we believe in Christ ? His contemporaries may 
have believed him, but can we who are separated by a great 
gulf of centuries ? I answer yes. 

We can believe in the history of Christ, for the records 
are here, those records are true or false, if false they could 
have been contradicted, when first written they were not 
contradicted and all modern attempts at contradiction, 
have been failures, we can therefore believe in the historic 
Christ. 

We can also believe in Christ as a supernatural man, 
that is, one whose life is above 4"he plane of ordinary ex- 
periences. To the Barbarian civilization is supernatural; 
to the plodding, unlearned rustic, the measurement of the 
celestial angles is well nigh supernatural; to the scientific 
savant each new development suggests something beyond 
the plane of common experience; worlds they say have 
been born of vapor, moons have leaped out of the bosoms 
of planets, chaos has moved into cosmos, frogs have meta- 
morphosed into birds, and birds into apes; if there has been 
a supernatural ape, why may there not have been a super- 
natural man? 

I can therefore believe in Christ, the supernatural, the 
sole man whose life was above the plane of ordinary human 
experience. 

We can also believe in Christ the divine man; not merely 
one whose lofty mind arose, and enthroned itself above the 
realm of humanity; but one more truly inspired, more 
deeply touched with the spirit divine. 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 6 ( 

Believing in God, one can believe that God would 
choose the truest heart and fill it with his fullness; what 
we know of the nature of God, what we know of our own 
need suggests that this might be expected; if God is a 
father he would seek his children; he would make himself 
known to them; he would commune with their loftiest 
thought; he would condescend to the lowest plane, he 
would thrust himself into the midst of their struggles; he 
would woo them away from sin; he would by example 
teach them how to overcome the world; but how could 
this be done, what better plan could be suggested than that 
taught in the Gospel? "Verily he took not on himself 
the form of angels, but the seed of Abraham. 11 But this 
was Christ! the diyine man; "in him dwelleth all the 
fullness of the God-head bodily. 11 Thus we can believe in 
the Christ of history, we can believe in the supernatural 
Christ, we can believe in the Christ divine. 

Such a faith is a balm for trouble; it brings God in the 
person of Christ very near to the human heart. It shows 
that my Heavenly Father's hand is open to bless me, in a 
sweeter sense than nature ever revealed; it teaches that God 
has even condescended to suffer for me; that he comes 
down to my "slough of despond,' 1 lifts me out, and points 
me upward; believing this and accepting the proffered 
hand I shall enjoy a better, a broader life. If my belief 
in God as a pure spirit, as the Creater of the universe, as 
the all-provident, was healing to the hurt of my souL 
much more must be my faith in Christ. 

But is this the full measure of faith ? Is Christ noth- 
ing more than an examplar, a teacher, a supernatural man, 
one stooping from heaven to reveal the Father, to instruct 
in spiritual things, and by living and dying to show men 
how to live and how to die? then why "make his soul an 
offering for sin? 1 ' why should "it please the Lord to bruise 



38 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 

him?" His death on the cross was an expenditure greater, 
infinitely greater, than teacher, or exatnplar, or martyr was 
ever called upon to make. The expeniiture was impera- 
tive or it would not have been made. His death must have 
been designed to meet some awful necessity of law, some 
deep demand of moral being; faith therefore accepts Christ 
as an absolute necessity. 

Christ fills a deep need of our nature. We need deliv- 
erance, redemption, and to be reconciled with God; but 
there is no pardon or pity in all the realm of nature; the 
laws of the universe are inexorable ; the heavens, the earth, 
the sea have no Savior;, but Christ comes and says, "believe 
me." I can supply your need; I come with law and author- 
ity in my hand on purpose to provide a great salvation; 1 
am your redemption; trust me and your most essential 
moral need shall be satisfied. u Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid." 

We all like sheep have gone astray; like planets that 
have leaped their orbits and are rushing away from the sun 
we are wandering away from God; sin hath separated; we 
rush one against another; is there no power that can re- 
duce our moral confusion to order and bring us back to 
God? No! unless the sun, God himself, shall come where 
we are. This is just what God has done, he came in the 
person of Christ, and soon men began to move about the 
Sun, God,and so Christ declared, "and if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me." True, the act was above nature, 
it was a necessity and infinite wisdom was sufficient to ac- 
complish it. 

Such a belief in Christ is a cordial for our fears, a rem- 
edy for our troubles. If Christ was indeed God incarnate, 
if the Heavenly Father has thus come down and touched 
the heart-nature of his children, if Diefcy has thus come into 
complete unity and sympathy with men, made himself one 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 39 



with us, made our interests his own, taught us how to live, 
suffered for us, became reconciled unto us, it must be be- 
cause he loves us. 

We can confide in such a friend; we can rest in his good- 
ness; we know he will manage things wisely and lovingly; 
we can commit our eternal interest into his hands; we need 
not be troubled or fearful; for the heart that trusts him 
there is peace and joy. With qualities that are strong to 
triumph over foes without and passions within, with a di- 
vine friend who lives above and controls all natural 1 aw, 
with an almighty Savior speaking peace to my soul and in- 
viting me to cast all my burdens on him. there is no rea- 
son why any earthly disturbance, any thought of my heart 
in respect to my relations with God should cause me 
trouble; I believe, I live by my faith, and therefore I rest. 

III. A CHRISTIANS CONFIDENCE IN" A FUTURE LIFE. 

We are strange beings, our very needs frighten and 
inspire us, we want life, we do not want death. Oh! if T 
might but know that by dying I shall conquer death, I 
should not be afraid to die. If he who breathed moral life 
on the world could impart life eternal, if the hand that 
swept away my earthly troubles would sweep away from 
the grave its mists; if the love that provided home and plenty 
for us here would engage to make all necessary provisions 
for another world, then I should not only be tided over 
trouble, but 1 should be happy, forgiven, redeemed, im- 
mortal, nothing could do me harm. 

Well, here it is, here is all a deathless soul can ask; 
God, in the person of Christ, has come clown and told us 
that ail these deep and awful longings shall be satisfied; 
God, through Jesus Christ, declares to each child of his 
that there is triumph, there is life forevermore, and that 
in the Father's house there are many mansions. 



40 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 



You have lived in one of those mansions many years, 
a grand one too, 8,000 miles broad, 25,000 miles in circum- 
ference; what wealth is stored in its cellars; what variety 
of beauty is spread upon its floors; what splendors crowd 
its ceilings; but there are many more, unnumbered, they 
shine in. everlasting glory; they crowd the infinite distances 
of space; they make the Father's house; his providence 
reaches each me of them; they become more magnificent 
as they spread outwardly toward the throne; the city of 
the throne is 375 miles broad, 375 miles long, " and the 
length, and the breadth of it are equal' 1 . Be not troubled 
therefore dear soul, it saved and redeemed there is in one 
of those mansions a place for you. Without this belief a 
black pall would fall on the heart. 

Yes, you say, I have looked out upon yonder worlds; I 
have seen Venus in her beauty, Jupiter in his banded 
strength, Saturn in his rings of gold, Sirius in burning 
glory, and all the flaming host that sweep the sky; aye, I 
have thought of things more beautiful than those, more 
vast and enduring, of a life where sin cannot trouble, death 
cannot come, night cannot enter; I have dreamed of a city 
out of sight, with walls of jasper, gates of pearl, and streets 
of gold, of nations saved, of songs sweeter than ear ever 
heard, and of joys purer than any that have yet filled the 
human spirit. But you say perhaps ail this was nothing 
but a dream. Christ said, " if it were not so L would have 
told you." He came to confirm your dearest hopes, if they 
were false he would have corrected them; if there is no 
Heaven he would have told you. Go on then fostering 
this blessed belief, it will extract the sting of death, it will 
spoil the grave of its victory. 

I have sometimes wished that he who came to breathe 
courage into human hearts, to quicken confidence in God, 



GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 41 



to command faith in himself, and to assure that man's long- 
ings for a deathless existence are not in vain; I have some- 
times wished that he had remained here on the earth; then we 
might fly to him with our douhts, our fears, our fancies, with 
our sorrows, our sins, our heart-wounds, and consult him. 
Each would have ten thousand questions to propose to the 
Master; we should each know that the truth had been told us 
But he anticipated my wish; he said " what thou knowest 
not now thou shalt know hereafter;" "it is expedient for 
you that I go away;' 1 " I go to prepare a place for you." 
Oh, this is the sweetest utterance I ever heard. He who 
strewed the earth with flowers and spangled the skies with 
stars, has become my servant; I may have been a poor sin- 
ner, little and unknown, cast out, forsaken, and forgotten 
among men, but he who made the worlds promised to pre- 
pare a place for me. He knows my needs; if prepared for 
me it will suit me; it will be ready when I am ready for it. 
I can rest in this assurance for iw I know in whom I have 
believed;" I need not multiply questions, I shall be satisfied. 

There is something in a Christian's confidence in a 
future life that somehow appeals to the most responsive 
part of our being. It is not the result of cold metaphysics; 
it does not say matter is imperishable, therefore probably 
man shall not die; it is God speaking to man and saying, "I 
am the All-Father, you are my children; because I live you 
live, you shall be where I am, I will receive you unto my- 
self, I will come to you, I will conduct you safely through 
the dark death-valley, and fold you in my everlasting arms 
at last." It appeals to the heart as well as to the intellect; 
it, makes immortality a part of my inheritance, not by a 
frigid syllogysm, but by "Christ formed within me the hope 
of glory." 

Thus the Gospel is a panacea for a troubled heart. It 
bids me subdue myself and promises the peace that comes 



42 GOSPEL REMEDY FOR A TROUBLED HEART. 

of such a victory. It invites me to look above men and 
above matter to that Omnipotent Being who overrules all 
things for my good. It points me to Calvary and the great 
scheme of Redemption, and thus lifts from my troubled 
conscience a dreadful burden. It opens up the evermore, 
and promises that all things are mine; u life. death, things 
present, things to come, all are mine.' 1 Indeed, the Gospel 
is a finality, it solves all doubts, answers all questions and 
satisfies the deepest longings of the deathless soul; with 
such a sovereign remedy provided for all, there need not be 
a troubled heart on earth. 

This world, with the Gospel working in it would be 
Heaven were it not for our unbeiief . Unbelief makes sin, 
and sin is the mother of all misery. Correct the confidences 
of the human heart and trouble can trouble us no more. 
We do have some faith, and in so far we rest; but when the 
world shall be in harmony with itself; when man's confi- 
dence in his brother man shall be unshaken; when the 
world's faith in God shall be complete; when the belief of 
humanity shall comprehend Jesus Christ, and when faith 
shall be crowned with the Christian's assurance of Heaven 
and eternal life, then trouble will die and joy will reign. 



.«J0gp£U 



^T^Gxeir* 



THE LORD'S WITNESSES- 



Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I 
have chosen; that- ye may know and believe me, and under- 
stand that I am he; before me there was no God formed, neither 
shall there be after me— Isaiah 43, 10. 

We receive moral complexion from our surround- 
ings; the influence of association is marked: impressions 
received at home are indelible ; when individuals mingle or 
nations flow together one is influenced by the other; the 
character that each assumes is indicative of the atmosphere 
in which he has lived; go into the garden and you carry 
away with you the scent of the flowers; visit the barnyard or 
the kitchen and you will be odorous of the cattle and the 
kettles. 

Association made the Hebrews idolatrous; idolatry be- 
came their besetting sin, commencing with their earliest 
history it pursued them for more than a thousand years. 
Contrary to the divine command, they sought heathenish 
and unhealthy associations, and golden calves, corruption, 
demoralization, expressed their groveling desires and carnal 
purposes. Their mission was to annihilate every vestige of 
idolatrous seperstition, which, if they had accomplished, 



44 the lord's witnesses. 

would have resulted in the prevention of much national 
trouble and moral obliquity, but instead, they mingled 
promiscuously with the heathen and reaped the baneful 
consequences. 

The heathen claimed strange things for their deities; 
thus, the Egytians believed that their gods sometimes 
transformed themselves into animals, hence the ibis, the 
ape, the cat, the dog, the bull, the crocodile and the beetle^ 
were reverenced as divine. The Carthagenians declared 
that Urania could control the clouds and speed or withhold 
the rain, and that Saturn could command all possible calam- 
ities, and even perform the remarkable feat of swallowing 
his own children. Other deities, it was claimed, held for- 
tune, the crops, and life or death in their hands. The 
Greecian divinities, it was said, incited to war, nerved the 
arm of the warrior, assumed the forms of men, fought on 
the battle-field, and contended with, wounded and slew each 
other. But there was no history, there was nothing but 
myth to substantiate such claims. 

On the contrary, the Hebrew people, if they saw not 
the person of God, felt his power, The manna that fell 
from Heaven, by which the hungry multitude were fed for 
forty years, was no trick of legerdemain. The thunderings 
and legislations of Sinai were more dreadful and glorious 
than any magnificence that can attach to an earthly tribu- 
nal. Then that Holy Temple and Sacred Altar, those 
heavenly communings, those frequent shouts of spiritual 
triumph, that covenant and oracle, that promise of Messiah, 
how strengthening and inspiring! Neither Egyptian, nor 
Median, nor Philistine, nor Tyrian could boast a history like 
this. The God of the Hebrew was not the idol Apolos 
bound to the altar with a chain of gold, but 
" The God that rules on high, 
That all the earth surveys." 



the lord's witnesses. 45 

Israel, though perverse and apostate, was pursued and 
environed by the active love of an unforgetful Providence; 
perhaps no more than other peoples, but they more than 
others, learned at last to recognize it. Should we stop and 
consider, it would appear to the worst of us that God has 
not been far away. The divine spirit woos us as individu- 
als, as nations, along the line we ought to go. In the 
lapse of years we look back and see where the doings of 
Providence were kindly intended for our good, and would 
have accomplished good had we yielded to our supreme con- 
victions. So after ten centuries of experience in apostacy and 
penitence, unbelief and service, Israel retrospected the past, 
compared their history as sinners with their history as be- 
lievers, and their experiences as idolaters with their experi- 
ences as worshippers of Jehovah, and confessed that the 
Lord had been good. It was in the subduing atmosphere 
of such a review that Isaiah addressed Israel in the language 
of the text, "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my 
servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and be- 
lieve me, and understand that I am he; before me there was 
no God formed, neither shall there be after me." 

God's people, in whatever clime or age they live, are 
witnesses. If the Jew could testify of the divine character 
and power, much more can the Christian, for he stands as 
it were on the shoulders of all who have preceded him; the 
past as well as the present is his. Messiah has come — sal- 
vation is an actual experience. But modern unbelief would 
dethrone God both in the moral and material universe. 
That which can destroy the unfaith of the times is testi- 
mony. God's people have proved the truth of the Gospel 
in their experiences, therefore "Ye are my witnesses saith 
the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen." It will 
be practical therefore to inquire 



46 the lord's witnesses. 



I. WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATION'S OF A CHRISTIAN WIT- 
NESS ? 

II. WHAT IS THE BURDEN OF THE CHRISTIAN'S TESTIMONY? 

Numerous learned volumes have been written on the 
u Evidences; 1 ' they are as good in the sphere of theology, 
as other text-books are in the sphere ot geology, botany, 
chemistry, or astronomy; there is Butler's Analogy, for 
instance, the author of which shows clearly that Nature 
and Christianity proceeded from the same source; other 
books that prove the harmony of nature and revelation; 
others that scientifically demonstrate the integrity and au- 
thenticity of the Sacred Records; books which, if the wise- 
acres of infidelity would diligently and faihfully read, 
would destroy some of their conceit and vanity. 

Great aud complete as are the written evidences of 
Christianity, we must not make the fatal mistake of sup- 
posing that they are pre-eminent; there is a silent testimony 
far more convincing, the testimony of a perfect Christian 
character, such is a living epistle known and read of all 
men. 

In answering the question what are the qualifications 
of a Christian witness? we might answer 

1. Correctness. Presumptive or untrustworthy evi- 
dence will not do. In law there is such a thing as legal pre- 
sumption. Show that a man has not been heard from for 
seven years and the law will presume that he is dead. Prove 
that a certain person has held peaceful possession of a piece of 
land for twenty years and the law will presume that he 
must be the rightful owner; or prove that a child is under 
seven years of age and the law will presume that he is with- 
out discretion. Such evidence may do for the law, but it 
will not do for Christianity. One cannot declare the ;, 01d 
Adam" has been harmless for seven years therefore he is 



the lord's witnesses. 47 



crucified with Christ; nor that he has been a professor of 
religion for two decades therefore he must be a Christian; 
nor that he has been testifying for Christ for seven years 
and therefore his testimony is true, for it is plain the Old 
Adam asleep, is not the Old Adam dead; profession is not 
possession; what a man says is not necessarilly true; cor- 
rectness means more than presumption, it means kt truth 
in the inward parts 11 . 

A witness must present tk the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth 11 ; .:o mere theory of his own can 
be received. So a Christian must testify as to what Religion 
is to him, it were insufficient to declare what it has done 
for others, or to expatiate on the indwelling powers, or even 
the sublimities of Vie Grospel, except so far as they touch 
and morally quicken his own soul. 

The world cannot be convinced of the power and 
blessedness of Christian truth by witnesses who know 
nothing about it. To witness a good profession it must be 
put on the ground of experience. The people are convinced 
of the healthful properties of certain water, not so much 
by the analysis as by experience; invalids drank, were cured 
and confessed it. So God asks for witnesses who have tasted 
and seen that he is good; witnesses who have washed in the 
fountain opened for sin and uncleanness and have been 
healed of their moral maladies; men cannot long resist the 
honest testimony of experienced men. 

Correctness implies a well-intended, unremitting effort 
to obtain a perfect experience. It is true that everything 
has its weight; what is seen in the momentary flash of the 
lightning, what is felt in the sudden and violent move- 
ment of a spiritual spasm, it may be better to have loved a 
little and lost it than never to have loved at all, that man 
who is awakened to-day and backslides to-morrow may 



48 the lord's witnesses. 



know something of the Christian life; hut it is he who 
has started and goes on, he who climbs despite every obsta- 
cle, he who goes through summer heat and winter cold, he 
whose experience widens and deepens and intensifies day by 
day, he who has become "rooted, grounded and fixed", and 
not he who had an experience once, but has none to-day, 
who may expect to convince the world by his testimony. 

Perhaps you have h a ard of the old colored man who, 
when he was asked his age, said, "Well, sail; I doesn't know 
how old I is, but 1 knows how old I is as de Lord's chile; I 
Avas born again" he said "jest afore Christmas a long time 
ago, and every time dat Christmas came \ jest drop a pebble 
into dis here bottle; now, massa, if you jes count dem peb- 
bles you'll see how old I is as de Lord's chile." The pebbles 
were counted and fifty-one told the story of his Christian 
life. That old negro had an experience. So we need an 
experience that counts one every year, an experience of 
constant service, growing love, and increasing faith. 

2. Information. Intelligence in any possible position 
in life is better than ignorance; a full head is always prefer- 
able to an empty one, unless it is full of nonsense. The 
merchant must have brain as well as push; the farmer, to 
succeed, must have mind as well as muscle; the mechanic 
must have good sense as well as good tools, and the minister 
who deals in words rather than in thought would, in this 
educated age, very soon play out. 

Christianity cannot afford to put a premium on igno- 
rance; it would be contrary to its own genius, for it turns 
darkness into light and barren brains into productive 
brains. It is wonderfully connected with universal knowl- 
edge, and to the inspiration that is necessary to its pursuit. 
Having found a Divine Father, the soul seeks to know the 
universe he has made. Science is the natural result of de- 
votion, a devout man beholds the earth and regards its 



THE LORD S WITNESSES 



49 



vales, hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, its flora and fauna, 
its laws and its wonders, and loves to study its clouds and 
storms, its blue skies and beaming stars, because he loves 
God. u An undevout astronomer is mad. 1 ' 

A child of God has an inborn right to know every 
good thing and to be able to distinguish what is bad that 
he may shun it. The more a man knows the more perfect 
will be his testimony for God and Christianity; he may 
even open the gates and let in the flood of the world's 
thought. Why make him a hermit locked up in the cell of 
his own opinions? Thoroughly educated in the wisdom of 
the Word of God, there is nothing in Vedas, or Shasters, 
or Koran, or Philosphy, or Infidelity that can injure him. 
The testimony of a Christian cannot possibly suffer on ac- 
count of being able to offset the excellencies of other religions 
by the greater excellencies of his own, and certainly a sound 
Christian should be able to point out the defects cf opposing 
systems. It is not intelligence but ignorance that kills, 
a the people perish for lack of knowledge." 

Let us sustain the public schools, support and endow 
colleges of the highest order, encourage those who devote 
their lives to the profession of a teacher, give the boys 
and girls the most liberal education, seek to sanctify 
knowledge with the spirit of the Gospel; let us determine 
to devote at least one hour in every twenty-four to the 
reading of good books, let us think for ourselves, let us en- 
courage thought in our Sunday Schools, our class-meetings, 
our prayer-meetings, then there will be less religion of a 
treadmill character, and less cant, and with an undoubted 
Christian experience which is of the first importance, we 
shall be able to witness a good profession before God and 
man. 

3. Individuality, Variety prevails, u one star differeth 



50 the lord's witnesses. 

from another star in glory. 1 ' Earth is diversified, moun- 
tains swell, valleys sink, rivers roll, lakelets dance ; there are 
trees of all kinds, sizes and forms; there are flowers of every 
hue and tint and shape, and no two blades of grass are ex- 
actly alike. One thing cannot metamorphose itself into 
another; it is well that it cannot. A like variety exists in 
the human body. Paul alludes to it, the foot, the hand, 
the ear, the eye; one cannot say to the other "I have no 
need of thee;" it is the variety of members in one body 
that makes the perfect man. Similar differences exist in a 
building, the parts are numerous, the material is not all 
alike, it is in different forms and place*, and because each 
part and piece serves its particular purpose the building 
stands forth in all its finished beauty, all its elaboration of 
convenience and comfort. Should the foundations and cor- 
nices undertake to exchange offices, confusion and destruc- 
tion would reign. 

God has planned dissimilarity in the church among his 
witnesses; one is a mountain and can never make a sea of 
himself, another is a flower and cannot become a star, an- 
other is a hand and cannot change himself into a foot, an 
eye, or an ear, while still another is a girt and cannot be- 
come a sill or a rafter. 

The Gospel has probably done for us each a different 
work; it has conquered this man's appetite , subdued this 
man's 'passion, and chastened the thoughts and strength- 
ened the love of these, so that under Grace we need not be 
ashamed of our individualities; it is better to be what we 
are; whether, therefore, we be corner stones or shingles in 
the Temple of God, let us be thankful and do our best in 
whatever position Providence may place us. Even shingles 
can tell of pattering rains and smiling sunbeams; iron girts 
can tell of form and strength acquired in glowing heat and 



THE LORD'S WITNESSES. 51 



by anvil ringing, and the hard, cold, marble can tell of pol- 
ished veins and nobler destiny secured under chisel, and 
mallet, and revolving irons. 

Yes, positive characters are few, a majority of men are 
willing to become the shadows of somebody else, at least 
transparent bodies through which the sunbeams of other 
men's minds pass without absorption; 3 T ou can look through 
their transparency and see whom they imitate; thus they 
throw up their own individuality, they step out of the 
sphere for which they were intended and forego their own 
personal influence and all the good that might possibly 
come of it. Some Goliath takes a sling and pebble and 
makes a child of himself, or some David puts on a giant's 
armor which crushes him with its weight. 

The Gospel influences man in the depths of his own 
self-hood, it makes the best kind of a man by sanctifying 
his peculiarities, and sends him forth complete in himself 
to testify to its saving truth and power; there will be 
phazes of difference in the individual testimony, but in its 
general effects it will blend like the moving bits of a kalei- 
doscope, or like the varied forms and tints of a landscape. 
As witnesses for God, therefore, let us endeavor to be cor- 
rect in our spiritual presentation, let u& witness an intelli- 
gent profession, and let us stamp our testimony with the 
seal of our redeemed individuality. Let us inquire. 

II. WHAT IS THE BURDEN OF A CHRISTIANS TESTIMONY? 

1. It is the burden of the Christian's testimony to 
demonstrate the possibility of salvation. There are many 
truths in which the world is interested. There are many 
questions started even by the Word of God, that really de- 
serve consideration, and jet are secondary in importance. 
In the early Church it was a lawful question — What is to 
become of the rites and ceremonies of Judaism? What is 



52 the lord's witnesses. 

the position of the Church with regard to holy days ? What 
is to he done with endless Jewish genealogies? But there 
was one thought paramount to every other thought, the 
thought, nay, the historic fact that " Jesus Christ came into 
the world to save sinners.' 1 

So there a v e man} r things to which Christians may 
testify, if they are able, and many opinions that may be 
discussed: they may talk about inspiration, the authority of 
Scripture, the Trinity, the procession of the Spirit, the 
philosphy of the Atonement, the geology of Genesis, the 
science of Darwin, the speculations of Heckel, but the fact 
most worthy of thought and testimony is the salvation of 
sinners. The Israelites may have been idolaters, Butler's 
analogy is a great book, knowledge is important, individu- 
ality must not be forgotten, the M. E. Church has a million 
and a half of members, Arminianism is better than Calvin- 
ism, but this is the faithful saying, this is worthy of all 
acceptation, this is the burden of the Christian's testimony, 
"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 

The problem of salvation to the sinuer is strange and 
enigmatical ; he may see its beauty but fails to see its appli- 
cation; he does not even, by nature, understand his own 
moral danger, therefore God sends the quickening spirit and 
requires each Christian to present the convincing testimony. 
Build a church, open the Bible, present the glorious scheme 
of salvation by faith to large and listening audiences, yet 
if there were none to whom the arm of the Lord had been 
revealed, who would believe your report ? Missionaries often 
preach and labor hi new fields many years before a soul is 
is converted, but one faithful native Christian having been 
secured, then, under the influence of personal testimony 
they press on to win. Give a few who know the way and 
walk in it, who have found the light and keep it shining, 
and are willing to let the world know what the Lord hath 



53 

done for their souls, and the conviction is complete, the vic- 
tory is sure; an honest man's testimony cannot long be 
resisted; thus the evidence of the possibility of salvation 
rests upon the Christian; argument is unavailing without 
the clinched nail of personal testimony. 

2. It is a burden of Christian testimony to show that 
the Gospel universalizes sympathy. The Church, during its 
history, has at times given poor testimony to the power of 
the Gospel to make men broad and sympathetic. Nay, 
those who called themselves followers of Christ were often 
mere pretenders; men have been recreant to their sacred 
trusts and false to the principles proclaimed by the Master. 

"I will tell the Church," says Ingersol, "why I hate it: 
You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the 
enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake, roasted 
us before slow fires, torn our flesh with irons; you have 
covered us with chains, treated us as outcasts; you have 
filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and 
children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; 
you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; 
you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our 
tongues ; you have refused us burial. In the name of your 
religion you have robbed us of every right, and after having 
inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this 
world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped 
hands implored your God to finish the holy work in hell. ,, 

To charge such things on the Christian people of the 
present age, were impossible except to the slanderous daring 
of infidelity. Yet, to this terrible arraignment, there was 
once a party in the body of the Church who might have 
pleaded guilty; it would be foolish for us to deny the fact 
or attempt to pdliate the wrong; zeal fired by ignorance, 
bigotry inspired by fanaticism have been a consuming 



54 the lord's WITNESSES. 

flame of cruelty, as ready to dart oat from the heterodox as 
from the orthodox. The enthusiastic theories of men have 
been accepted as the revelations of Grod, the glosses of un- 
principled disputants have been uttered as inspirations. 
Hypatias have been given to death, a Galileo and a Coperni- 
cus to the inquisition, and dissenters to the flames; and 
prayers have been offered that the blue fires of hell might 
penetrate the souls of the martyrs. 

The present is not responsible; the past has been as 
marked with gentleness and sweetness as with persecution. 
Infidelity forgets or ignores this fact. We can only lament 
that ever men have been narrow and cruel, and regret that 
they hive so much lacked the spirit of the Gospel, and 
hope that the sharp, scathing sword of educated criticism 
may be always and everywhere used against whatever may 
corrupt or cripple the faith as it is in Christ. 

Wherever the Gospel is permitted to work unhindered 
in the human heart it strengthens the bonds of brother- 
hood, and widens and deepens the sjmipathies of men. The 
fruits of the spirit are not "bigotry, superstition, hatred, 
wrath, murder; 11 but ''love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen- 
tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. 11 Christi- 
anity broke in upon a blood-thirsty age and softened it with 
love. Christ came and suggested, and accomplished a plan 
by which the world might be lifted out of superstition, 
dessolation and woe. If Christian law is in certain cases 
more rigid than the Mosaic, it is always more benign. It 
breaks into the harem and stricking the shackles from the 
hand of woman, it makes her the partner and the equal of 
man. Pagan nations slaughter their children; the Romans 
exposed their little ones to death; infanticide has prevailed 
in India and China, but Jp^us took little children in his 
arms and blessed them. As for the present, we see that, 
while custom degrades this man and honors the other, while 



the lord's witnesses, 55 



the rich regard the poor as an inferior race, while the capi- 
talist puts his foot on the neck of the laborer, and the ple- 
beian is arrayed against the patrician, the Gospel would 
destroy all caste, bitterness, and strife, and fold the race. 
without respect of person, in the arms of a blessed and uni- 
versal brotherhood: it is a voice that whispers ''little children 
love one another, 11 for love is of God; "he who loveth not 
his brother whom he hath seen how shall he love God 
whom he hath not seen." 

Do you ask then for the proof that Christianity is of 
God ? Then your attention might be aroused by argument ; 
the person of Jesus would crown your reason with heaven- 
ly reality; but when T show you a living example of the 
Gospel power, a man who has broken away from the nar- 
row environments of selfishness, a soul moving seraph-like 
in the broad field of universal fraternity, his sympathy 
sweeping onward like moving light, his love reaching this 
man in his joy and that one in his sorrow; a sanctified 
spirit doing by proxy the work of Jesus Christ, you will be 
convinced beyond a doubt or a question. 

The greater the love- work the Church shall accom- 
plish, the more willingly and generally it shall rise to the 
sublimity of unselfish sacrifice, the more overpowering will 
be the evidence that Christ, Christianity and the Church 
are divine. If Christians therefore would render then* tes- 
timony complete, let them, by deeds of love perpetually 
repeating, manifest the spirit of Christ, and prove that the 
Gospel enters into whatever can lift up, make better, or 
bless the race. 

" Ye are my witnesses saith the Lord;" but brothers, 
have you entered into the rich experiences of regeneration ? 
Are you seeking information in regard to the things of the 
Kingdom? Are you working in that particular sphere, 



56 



THE LOKD S WITNESSES. 



and with those peculiar talents with which God designed 
you should? Are you trying to pursuadethe world that 
Christ Jesus saved sinners? Do you feel yourself bound by 
a chain of Christian love to all mankind? Then continue 
the voice of your testimony, for soon it must be hushed. 
While we are on the witness-stand, and so many are await- 
ing for our testimony, let the burden of our testimony be 
on the side of Christ and his truth. 



ICa g& 



s5fe 



; 



■M-Tfei sL, i i >=il 




CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE. 



"In all things shewing thyself 'a pattern of good works." — 
Titus, 2:1. 

Titus was a Greek gentile converted to Christianity. 
Paul was his spiritual father. It is not known where he 
lived, but probably somewhere in Asia Minor; nor is it 
known at what time he was converted, save that it was 
previous to the fourteenth year after the conversion of Saul. 
He was for some time the traveling companion of the great 
apostle, who seemed to repose perfect confidence in him, en- 
trusting him with letters to carry to Corinth, appointing 
him to heal the divisions of that Church, and sending him 
to Crete to ordain elders in every city. The tradition is that 
Titus soon left Crete, but returned and preached the Grospel 
there, and in the neighboring islands, dying in the ninety- 
fourth year of his age. 

Crete is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, 250 miles 
long and 50 miles broad. It is supposed to have been settled 
originally by a people from the coast of Palestine, who were 
called Crethi or Cretans. The island was once infested with 
pirates; it gave eighty vessels to the Trojan war; it 



58 CHRISTIAN" EXAMPLE. 

furnished Lycurgus a model for his code; it was 
celebrated for its hundred cities; during the time of Christ 
and the apostle the Cretans were in a greatly degenerated 
state; the population of the island was composed largely of 
rough seamen; Paul describes them as being "liars, evil 
beasts and slow bellies," or gluttons. 

Titus was a young man when the apostle appointed him 
to that large circuit, therefore, soon af her his arrival in 
Crete Paul wrote and sent to him a letter of advice, coun- 
selling that he exhort the aged men to be " sober, grave, 
temperate, sound in faith, charitable and patient, 1 ' that the 
aged women be " in behavior as becometh holiness, not false 
accusers, not given to much wine, and teachers of good 
things ;" that "they should teash the young women to be 
sober, to love their husbands, to love their children to be 
discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own 
husbands;" and to exhort "the young men to be sober- 
minded;" but especially impressing that young minister that 
in all things he should " show himself to be a pattern of 
good works." 

" Some parsons are like finger posts, 

I've oi-uen heard them say 
They never go to Heaven themselves. 

But only point the way." 

But it was not so with Titus, he was to win by pare 
precept and proper example; he was to exert on those semi- 
barbarous Cretans a transforming influence, first by his 
preaching, but secondly and more effectually by his Chris- 
tian example. 

What is true of the ministry is true of the church; in 
a sense we are all " priests unto God", so that the counsel of 
the text is profitable for the pew as well as the pulpit; and 



CHRISTIAN" EXAMPLE. 59 

when Paul said to Titus " in al] things show thyself a pat- 
tern of good works/' he spoke to the laymen as well as to 
the minister. 

There are three points present 3d in this text that are 
worthy of consideration. 

I. THAT CHRISTIANS ARE PATTERNS. 
II. THAT CHRISTIANS ARE PATTERNS IN ALL GOOD THINGS. 
III. THAT CHRISTIANS ARE TO SHOW THEIR PATTERNS. 

There are several anglicized words having nearly the 
same significance; for instance there is the word model, 
from modus, which means a measure, or standard, or copy, 
hence a copy of a statue, a bust, a machine or a structure of 
any kind, on a reduced scale. In this sense a Christian is a 
model of Christ, and Christianity is measured by the char- 
acter of the Christian. Men judge of the Gospel by the 
moral life of its adherents. There is nothing in Christ 
which is not in Christian character if the Christian is true. 
The difference is one of capacity, not of quality ; a Christian 
is a model of Chrst, 

There is also the word example from the Latin eximere, 
to take out, meaning literaUy that which is taken out of a 
larger quantity, as a piece, a sample; thus the Christian is 
morally speaking a piece of Christ; u ye are ensamples to all 
that believe. 1 ' What a privilege, what a responsibility, to 
be in moral fibre, and texture, and in all those elements that 
enter into character just like Christ. We cannot be en- 
samples without first having undergone a new creation. 

Finally, there is the word pattern, which is something 
to be copied or imitated. The command is " in all things 
shew thyself a pattern," that is, one who can say " follow 
me," for I follow Christ; make your life after mine, for mine 
is made after Christ; imitate me for in mind and spirit I 
imitate the Lord Jesus, [t will not do to eulogize the beauty 



60 CHKISTIAST EXAMPLE. 

of Christian precept; if we would win men to high spiritual 
attainment, we shall succeed best by the power of a good 
example. The injunction, " do as I tell you, not as I do," 
kills and quickens not. The Christian parent must be able 
to say to his children, " I am your spiritual pattern;" the 
teacher to his scholars, "copy after me"; the minister to bis 
congregation " follow me; 11 the Church to the world. " live 
by me." We as Christians are to manifest the due propor- 
tion, the grace, the perfection of true character. We are in 
allthings to be patterns — but if patterns, how important that 
we should be correct. 

A pattern must first pass through the experienced hand, 
under the trained eye and the unerring rule of the pattern- 
maker. So a Christian character must first be fashioned by 
the hand of Christ. No inexperienced hand can be a pat- 
tern-maker, for the work requires exactness. There is only 
one artisan who can make a model of Christ, only one who 
can transform souls into patterns, Christ himself. Only 
when we have passed under his hand can we say "follow 
me. 11 Ministers boast of their converts, but it is an idle 
boast. God made the mind and he must renew it; he created 
the soul and only he can convert it; a man is transformed 
from sinfulness into holiness by the perfect law of God. 

Yet the Church has its work, and each individual 
Christian in the Church has his work; the particular work 
of the Christian Church is to aid, instrumeu tally, in lifting 
this world into a higher life; but it cannot be done unless 
the individual Christian has attained to that higher life 
himself. To cut a garment according to an imperfect pat- 
tern is to spoil the garment; to pour melted metal into a 
mould formed from a defective pattern is to make the ma- 
chinery defective; to introduce false figures into the solution 
of a problem is to carry them on and multiply them 
throughout the whole process. So to attempt to give shape 



CHEISTIAN EXAMPLE. 61 

and character to human souls by an imperfect or defective 
example is to mould them into moral deformity. The sinner 
compares himself to the Christian, if that Christian is a 
better man than the sinner, that sinner in thought at least 
is won to Christ; but if he is no better, if he sinks below 
the inoral level of the sinner, that sinner is driven farther 
away from the Cross. 

To be exemplary , Christians must be decided. A hybrid 
religion, a mixture of worldliness and the Gospel is poor 
stuff out of which to make a pattern. The man who stands 
on both sides of the line is really nowhere, he must get to 
one side or the other before he can find himself; neutrality 
makes a sandwich of a man; then to be a pattern is impos- 
sible because he imitates neither Christ or Belial. 

Professions, however loud or long-continued, amount to 
nothing unless backed up by the power of a good example. 
There is a pointed story told about some workmen avIio, 
when stroug drink was more commonly used than it is to- 
day, believed that one of their company visited the brandy 
bottle more often than the law allowed, so blackened its 
mouth on purpose to detect him. Soon there was a cry 
made, "somebody has been at the bottle." The drinker, 
though the black mark was on his lips, loudly protested that 
he was as "innocent as a child unborn." So a profession of 
religion is of poor effect when the black ring of hypocrisy 
is on the lips. 

Even to proclaim and teach the precepts of the Gospel 
without the flame of a holy life, will fail to promote the 
moral interest of the race; precept and example must blend 
into one beautiful character as they did in Titus; they are 
distinct, yet they are vitally united: they are like the 
Siamese twins, to separate them were to destroy them. 

Precepts are nails, they serve an excellent purpose, the 



62 CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE. 



world cannot get along without them, they have been pro- 
vided "by the Master of Assemblies; but a good example is 
the hammer that drives the nail into the sure place ; without 
the hammer the nails are useless. How ludicrous to see a 
minister carry into Church his keg of nails twice each Sab- 
bath, fifty-two Sabbaths each year, and year after year — 
nails that have been wrought on the anvils of logic, eight- 
pennys, tens, twentys, finishing nails, nails with silver tips, 
nails with golden heads, and never bring in one exemplary 
hammer. 

The world is cumbered with precepts or nails, the pul- 
pit is fidl of them, they have been scattered through the 
pews, the people have carried them away, they are piled up 
in our houses, Methodist nails, Presbyterian nails, Baptist 
nails, Temperance nails, Philosophic nails, and now the 
world is demanding a few more exemplary hammers to re- 
lieve the monotony, tack-hammers, sledge-hammers, ham- 
mers of sterling character, hammers consecrated to good 
works, hammers with the ring of the right metal in them, 
hammers that can break, or mend, or build, hammers that 
will hammer away until worn out, or until the Gospel Tem- 
ple shall be completed. 

II CHRISTIANS ARE PATTERNS IN ALL GOOD THINGS. 

''All good things 11 embrace not only those things that 
pertain to church membership, but also those things that 
pertain to good citizenship. 

Of course a Christian will be devout, an undevout 
Christian is a burlesque. He must study his Bible, if he 
does not love his Bible he does not love his religion; he duly 
appreciates the various means of Grace, for there he enjoys 
communion with saints; he will go to church on Sunday — 
" he who walks six miles to church preaches a sermon six 



CHEISTlAN EXAMPLE. 63 



miles long, for lie preaches, by his example, to all the resi- 
dents on the road as he passes. 1 ' He is as religious at home 
as at church, if he has not an altar in his own house he is 
a hypocrite; he gives liberally of his substance to support 
the Grospel, else he has a religion that costs him nothing, 
and a religion that is not worth a sacrifice is not worth 
having. He is also engaged earnestly in the great work of 
saving souls, for he who is not interested in the salvation of 
another has no interest in his own. These things are so 
evident that a Christian without these qualifications is in- 
conceivable. 

A model Christian will aspire to make the Church of 
which he is a member a model society. The Church is the 
exponent of Christian civilization, and should not be a whit 
behind it; indeed it ought to be a little in advance of thak 
which has become respectable through its all-polishing in* 
fluence. Yet in some localities the Church has receded 
from its true position; the water that clothed the wilder- 
ness with beauty has become stagnant and, possibly, un- 
wholesome; its own members being unprogressive have 
handed it over to inferiority, and made it the laughing stock 
of the world. A model Christian will not be satisfied with 
such social degradation; he will not limit his religion by his 
devotions; he will not be content u to dwell in a house of 
cedars while the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth 
under curtains 11 ; if he cannot have elegance he will insist 
on neatness, he will work that his Church shall exert the 
greatest possible influence, that it shall cultivate the best 
society, and secure the best schools and the best teachers. 
True, locally, this cannot always be the case, but a model 
Christian will certainly wish for, and earnestly seek for, the 
best of all good things that the circumstances can afford. 
Wealth may not be at command, but a church may be 



64 CHRIST! AN EXAMPLE. 

strong despite its poverty, if a pattern of wise zeal and of 
good works. 

A model Christian is a pattern in all good things ; not 
only is his heart aflame with heavenly devotion, and his 
church-home the very cream of good taste and sociability, 
but in all places, under all circumstances, he aspires to be 
the highest type of a man, and he has the elements right 
within his reach by which that loftiness of moral manhood 
can be secured. He will not be effeminate if the spirit of 
Jesus controls thought, passion and purpose. He will not 
be cowardly if devoting his life to his principles. There 
will be no sourness about him if his heart is filled with di- 
vine love as it ought to be. There can be no cold exclu- 
siveness about him who lives for his race as the God-man 
did ; and there is no complaining on the lips of him whose 
faith "like the cammomile-plant", develops the more rapid- 
ly for having been crushed. The model Christian therefore 
is the best man everywhere and every time, in all things a 
pattern. 

If a Christian is in all things a pattern, then he must 
be actively interested in whatever belongs to the well-being 
of men. If it were better for mankind that all the barriers 
of caste should be broken down, the model Christian would 
be the first to step out of his cell and move, seraph-like, 
among his fellows in order to promote their fraternity. If 
it is better to be happy than miserable, the model Christian, 
having filled himself with joy by drinking at its fountain, 
will move among men, not in solemn sombreness, but bright 
and smiling as a sunbeam. If it is better to be benevolent 
than selfish, that Christian who is a pattern in all good 
things will wisely consecrate his substance on the altar of 
human need, knowing that " he that giveth to the poor 



CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE. 65 

lencletli to the Lord \ If intemperance is a curse, corrupt- 
ing the bodies, blasting the brains and blighting the eternal 
hopes of men, the Christian will be a leader in all honest 
endeavor to banish it from the world. If the Gospel con- 
tains those truths and moral forces by which mankind can 
be lifted up to its God-intended place, if it can render the 
race happier, wiser and better, if it can sweep the shadow 
from the face of death, and the mist from the gates of eter- 
nal life, the pattern of Christianity will be indomitable in 
his sublime purpose of giving the Gospel to the world. 
Thus there is a completeness in the Christian life, it makes 
its possessor a pattern in all good things. 

III. CHRISTIAN'S SHOW THEIR PATTERN'S. 

There is a class of professed Christians who seem to 
think that they should live in a perpetual eclipse; they are 
harmlessly good; they are silently righteous; they have an 
experience but never refer to it ; they engage in good works 
but the world does not know it; the only prominence they 
enjoy is a prominence of obscurity. 

But thus " the children of light are not as wise as the 
children of darkness' 1 ; for the merchant, for instance, makes 
a success of his merchandize by a judicious display of his 
goods ; the inventor blesses his brother-man by telling the 
world of the benefits of his invention. By a similar display 
and comparison international expositions stimulate progress 
incommerce,science and art. The world would become insipid 
and stale if it were to hold every good thought and thing 
in obscurity. 

Of course it would be wrong for a Christian to work 
simply for notoriety, to pray just to be seen of men, to give 
alms simply for the sake of applause and prominence; if 
such were the motive to an action better not act, better 
" not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing 11 ; 



66 



CHEISTIA^" EXAMPLE. 



but a Christian, one whose eye is single to the glory of God, 
need not blow out his light lest the world should see and 
praise it, nor put it under a bushel lest the heart should 
become vainglorious. 

It were a great pity to deprive the world of the. light 
that conies of a holy Hfe and a good confession. It is some- 
thing to know that goodness is not aU dead. When angel 
fingers touch the chords of a human soul, the world, if 
possible, should hear the melody. 

The Gospel is not in need of silent adherents. For the 
love of Christ rocks would speak if men did not; Christ 
likens character to "a city set on a hill that cannot be hid' 1 , 
to u a light that is on a table and not under a bushel 1 '; and 
the Great Apostle requires that we "show" ourselves to be 
patterns in all good things. 

But this is an individual matter. The command show 
thyself a pattern is meant for you and me as much as it 
was meant for Titus. We are so constituted that we must 
"show our faith by our works". No work means no faith. 
When love is in the soul it will display itself, like the life 
in the rose it must burst out and scatter its sweetness. 
" Every man is to look to the things of others;' 1 "to take upon 
himself, Christ-like, the form of a servant, to work out his own 
salvation, Every knee is to bow,. every tongue to confess; 
the sons of God are to hold forth the word of life. In the 
midst of a crooked and perverse nation we are to shine as 
so many lights in the world." 

God expects me to contribute something. I am to hold 
forth what light I can, starry rays ?£ possible, a tallow dip 
if I have nothing better. In every thing that can edify the 
Church, or elevate the race, or promote a good cause, I am 
to have an equal interest and a proportionate share. Each 
man's contribution too will be counted; if tears are all that 



CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE. 67 



can be given I know that "they that sow in tears shall reap 
in joy*'; or if a prayer is all that can be offered, I am sure 
that that will not be forgotten; for John tells me "that the 
golden vials full of odors, in the hands of the four and 
twenty elders, are the prayers of saints. 11 I am not to 
stand back from the fire that is to warm this frozen world 
into summer beauty, because I can add only a straw to the 
fuel; nor on the other hand may I reap any of its direct 
benefits unless my little straw has been contributed. 

The idea is, do something. There is something in 
which the poorest, the most unworthy may excel. God has 
not left even the least of us without a mission. If nothing 
is done it is our own fault ; it is perhaps because we are 
ashamed to show ourselves i- faithful in what is least"; we 
are attempting great things that are beyond our reach, or 
dreaming of chances that may never flit across the field of 
our vision. Oh, let us take the little chances, the world is 
full of them, so full that no generous soul need wait a day 
without reaping a harvest of benedictions. Let us show 
ourselves to be patterns of good things in the opportunities 
that we have, and perhaps our example may encourage some 
other soul to go and do likewise. 

I have heard that one day a little boy went home from 
a mission school with his face washed clean, his mother saw 
the improvement and washed her face; coming home from 
his work at night, the father, by the force of example, was 
induced to wash his face; they then washed the faces of all 
their children, and all the neighbors that lived in the alley 
went to work and washed their faces ; and thus the people 
that had so long lived in filth became an amusing instance 
of a good example. So let us wash the thunder from our 
brows, the melancholy from our long-drawn countenances, 
and the glue from our finger-tips ; let what good nature we 
have flow freely out, embodying itself in good works, and, 



68 



CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE. 



perhaps, men who are dead and buried spiritually may be 
resurrected by our example. 

Others may hide their light under a bushel, let us be 
exemplary. Others may pursue schemes of self-aggrandize- 
ment, let us seek a moral up-building. Others, sluggard 
like, may fold their hands and be at rest, let us be patterns 
of good works, looking not for the perishable reward a 
worthless world can give, but to the "exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory 1 ' which Grod has promised to bestow. 




THE BURIED TALENT- 



And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, 
there thou has that is thine.— M at. 25, 25. 

This chapter contains two parables; that of the Vir- 
gins, the design of which is to teach that the heart, the in- 
ner life which is represented as being a lamp, must be kept 
supplied with the oil of Grace, and burning with the flame 
of love, so that character shall shine forth in its moral 
purity. Also that of the Talents, which beautifully sets 
forth the truth that the outward life and activities of the 
Christian, must receive due attention and be properly regu- 
lated. 

The plot of the parable of the Talents is admirably 
conceived. The idea is that in church-life there are certain 
phases resembling certain features that are common: "in the 
business world. "The Kingdom of Heaven, 1 ' saj-s Christ, 
iw is like unto a man traveling into a far country, who called 
his own servants and delivered unto them his goods." Of 
course being servants they were in the service of their 
master voluntarily. So church-membership and the res- 
ponsibility of the Christian profession, though beneficial 



70 THE BURIED TALENT. 

and necessary, are not compulsory, they are freely and vol- 
untarily assumed. 

It was customary in olden times for a master to leave 
his business in the hands of his servants or agents; they 
took his land and paid him a portion of the produce, or they 
took his money and loaned it for him, paying him a stipu- 
lated part of the interest. 

The traveler spoken of in the parable is represented as 
being a money-lender. On the eve of starting on a journey 
he calls three of his servants and " delivers to them his 
goods," to each according to his ability. To the first he 
delivered five talents, or about $7,500.00: to the second two 
talents, or $3,000.00, and to the third one talent, or $1,500.00, 
and then undertook his journey to a far country. 

Straightway the agents began their work. The first 
advertises that he has money to lend on good securities, and 
soon a flourishing business is on hand. The second does 
likewise, and although his capital is smaller he succeeds, 
proportionately just as well as the other. But the third, 
either stupidly misapprehended the nature of the contract 
he had made or was guilty of supineness and indifference, so 
instead of advertising money to let " he went and digged 
in the earth and hid his lord's money." 

After a long time the master returned and inquired into 
the condition of his business. The servant who had re- 
ceived five talents opened his books and demonstrated that 
the principal had doubled; with great satisfaction he an- 
nounced, ''behold, I have gained'". The servant who had 
received two talents also displayed his accounts and he was 
glad to be able to report " behold, I have gained two more 11 . 
But the servant with one talent had no such a happy settle- 
ment; lie accomplished no good for himself, he had not 
used his talent to benefit others, nor had he been of any 



THE BUKIED TALENT. 71 

use to his master; lie had gained nothing, had not even 
tried to do anything, he could not say, " behpld, I have 
gained", and was too cowardly to confess, "I have lost f 
but, as delinquents often do, he began to upbraid his mas- 
ter and to excuse himself. " You are a hard man. You 
exact conditions that your agents cannot meet. You have 
made me afraid; I have not embezzled your talent, nor mis-, 
spent it, nor lost it, but I have buried it in the earth; l lo! 
there thou has that is thine.' " 

What think you of such a servant as this ? Was he 
worthy to enter into the joy of his Lord? When the re- 
ception shall be given, when the banquet is spread, when 
the song swells upward, will he be worthy to participate in 
the festivities? Nay, rather, he should be dismissed the 
service, he should not be permitted to sit in the joyous light 
within; he deserves to be thrust into the darkness without. 
What if thou art the man ? 

My subject is The Buried Talent, to this I invite at- 
tention by considering 

I. THE VARIOUS ENDOWMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 

Althouh the talent stands for a certain amount of 
money, yet the money represents what is far more valua- 
ble, even the intellectual and spiritual endowments of an 
individual or an aggregation of individuals. When Christ 
left his disciples, he left them duly endowed, equipped and 
qualified for the work that they had to do. Similar en- 
dowments, with perhaps two or three exceptions, charaterize 
the Church of to-day. Those exceptions are the gift of 
miracles, the gift of tongues, and possibly the gift of 
prophecy; they were the blushes of Pentecost, and were 
not to be perpetuated any more than the rosy hues of 
morning are to continue until noon; they were to melt and 



72 THE BURIED TALENT. 



fade into the better, intenser, more practical work-a-day of 
Christian life and character. 

The Chnrch is endowed with a variety of natural gifts. 
Not that these obtain in larger measure among Christians, 
but that they have a generous share of them. Take the 
organizing talent, that which groups social forces and 
quickens them into service, and whose plans exceed those 
of such men as Wesley. Take the faculty of discernment, 
who can take the palm from such men as Bacon ? Take 
the teaching talent, none excel the instructors that Chris- 
tianity has produced. Take the gift of wisdom ; surely ''the 
Seven Wise Men of Greece" would fade in the presence of 
such metaphysicians as Hamilton, such observers as New- 
ton, such scholars as Dr. Adam Clarke. Take the talent of 
eloquence and who in point of success ever swept beyond 
the magic of a Chalmers? 

Or, it you please, take the several aesthetic talents, 
that skill which embodies ideals in picture or in marble; or 
that wonderful genius by which ideals are created, or that 
heavenly art by which discordant sounds are swept into 
pleasing harmonies, and where can such talent be found in 
greater measure than in the Christian Church? Christianity 
has built thought, feeling and devotion into its temples; it 
has swept the vicious spirit from sculpture and painting; it 
has put soul into poetry and Heaven into song. Where is 
better verse than Cowper's or Milton's? Where are sub- 
limer harmonies than those of Mozart or Beethoven ? As 
one contemplates such magnificent endowments of genius, 
two questions occur: How grand must be the possibilities 
and how fearful the responsibilities of the Christian 
Church? 

Besides natural gifts, the Church is spiritually endow- 
ed. Among those spiritual gifts I would, though doubtfully ^ 
place prophecy, the power of foreseeing the future; for it 



THE BUKIED TALENT. 73 

seems to me that the human mi ad is a far-reaching faculty, 
touched by the finger of God it may detect some coming 
calamity, or some approaching benediction; when a 
thoughtful man gets hold of one of God's unchanging 
laws, he can predict its results, with sublime confidence he 
can utter a prophecy. Then what is love if it is not a spir- 
itual endowment? John truly said "love is of God;' 1 at 
this perennial fountain the Church professes to be drinking ; 
can there be an endowment more glorious than this ? Add 
to these "the Baptism of the Holy Ghost 1 ', which is a di- 
vine presence in the world, helping those who call upon 
him;this spirit is .claimed by the Church; he is said to "help 
the infirmities" of God's people and to "lead them into all 
truth 11 ; baptized with such a spirit the Church is indeed 
endowed with power from on high. 

In addition to these natural and spiritual endowments, 
certain talents belong to the Church in consequence of the 
fact of her existence. I call them accidental. Thus the 
Church has had time. Who knows the value of time? 
Some men make much of "three score years and ten" ; with 
a few thirty years have been pregnant with astonishing re- 
sults, but the Christian Church has had two thousand yeaKS. 
Time has given prestige to the Church; she has lived while 
a hundred generations have arisen and perished. She has 
survived the revolutions of history. She has grown rever- 
end while philosophy has assumed a thousand shapes and 
faded a thousand times, so that her words have weight, her 
prestige gives her authority, wealth, learning, wisdom. 

With such endowments as those I have mentioned, the 
Church should be well-nigh omnipotent in the world, its 
heart full of the life of Go d, the remotest corners of the 
earth should feel the vitalizing warmth of its influence, and 
the centers of society should glow with celestial fire; it 



74 THE BT TRIED TALENT. 

should not merely impress but sway empires; in short, with 
such endowments and opportunities each Christian should 
be able to adopt the language of the apostle and say " now^ 
thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph 
in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge 
b} r us in every place." But the question arises, is the 
Church of Jesus Christ as potent a factor in the formation 
and control of the great moral forces that enter into the 
lives of individuals and communities as it ought to be. 
This brings us to considder 

II. THE BURIED TALENTS OF THE CHURCH. 

Speaking of the Church I use the term in its broad, 
not in its restricted sense. I do not mean the company of 
God's elect children, nor the community of true believers 
who live as they believe; but I mean the sum of the various 
Christian denominations that have been or are now in the 
world. Of many of these I fearlessly declare that they are 
not so important a power in the world for the uplifting, 
swaying, evangelizing and blessing of humanity as they 
ought to be, they are like the man who went and hid his 
lord's money in the earth. 

Nor do I mean to say that Christianity has not been, 
and is not now, a gloriously aggressive force in the uni- 
verse; it has won its saving way wherever the heart has 
been open to its influence. Christ proclaimed it, and the 
common people gave it their sympathy, though Pharisees 
and Saducees opposed; at Pentecost it was victorious. 
When persecution prevailed its triumph continued. When 
scholars like Lucian, Celsus, Porphry, Hierocles, attacked 
it, it lost none of its power. It marched upon the barbaric 
tribes of northern Europe and morally subdued them; 
when ignorance and immorality prevailed, when the organic 



THE BURIED TALENT. 75 



Church itself was corrupt, and all Europe held her priests, 
her doctrines, her ordinances in contempt, pure Christianity 
sprang to the trout and led humanity forward to morality 
and victory. Denominations have fought, but the princi- 
ples of Jesus have triumphed. In the eighteenth century 
the Gospel was undermined, but in the beginning of the 
nineteenth century a powerful reaction set in in favor of 
Christ and his truth. The infidel philosophy and opposing 
science of our day are but strengthening the scholarship 
and broadening the culture of Christianity. 

I make, therefore, a distinction between Christianity 
and the Church; the former is a divine life-force that is 
destined to conquer, the latter may for all I know, in some 
of its existing forms, vanish away. 

To a large extent the Church has buried its talents, 
and whether Protestant or Catholic, in so far as its Grod- 
given energies are dormant, it is to-day, as Dr. Ewer said, 
" only a miserable raft, its fragments floating apart, like the 
flying rack of the Heavens. 1 ' The present Church may 
go under, but the Gospel will win. 

It is true that certain individuals in the Church are 
faithful in that whereunto they are called; the servant with 
two talents has gained two. and he with five has gained 
other five. It is true that the number of these faithful 
followers has reached large proportions. In every denom- 
ination there are earnest, loving, devoted souls. In each 
Church there are believing, praying, zealous, efficient spir- 
its. The salt and leaven of Christianity are at work every- 
where. u There are a few names even in Sardis who have 
not defiled their garments; 11 yet there are many in the so- 
called Christian Church who " have a name to live and are 
dead. 11 

Take the Church in this community as an example, it 



76 THE BURIED TALENT. 



will stand for the Church in many other localities; it is 
represented by fourteen sanctuaries, about the same num- 
ber of priests and ministers, a Christian college and hun- 
dreds of adherents; it has intelligence, education, culture, 
wealth, genius, prestige; it has experience, superior facilities 
and thorough organization. There is no active opposition, 
no organized enmity has as yet risen into sufficient promi- 
nence to be worthy of notice; yet the Church is not per- 
ceptibly beating back the flood of sin. Saloons open their 
doors, profanity progresses, immorality thrives and souls go 
down to hell, while professed Christians stand and look on 
with stolid indifference; and it seems sometimes that a dead 
wall of adamant, impenetrable and insurmountable, has 
been built around the unsusceptible hearts of the children 
of men. 

Nor can my own congregation plead tha x it is not 
guilty of having buried its talents. True, a revival wave 
has occasionally swept over this people, and there are many 
who will forever thank Grod for the fervent zaal of the 
Methodist Church; but alas! how few are ever heard plead- 
ing with and praying for the ungodly. Most of the young 
people of the congregation are still unconverted. Metho- 
dist children have forsaken the altars of their fathers be- 
cause there was not religious and social power enough to 
hold them. The Church has won because a few have been 
faithful, but it has lost all it would have iiad if the eighty 
had been as true as the twenty have been. 

Why then are the ungodly unconvinced of sin? Why 
are they not induced to become Christians ? Is it because 
the Moral Law has lost its power? I think not, for athe- 
ism has but a small and negative influence; idolatry is un- 
popular, profanity is generally acknowledged to be wrong. 
The Sabbath is recognized as being a wise, good and useful 



THE BURIED TALENT. 77 

provision; filial love is universally applauded; murder is 
frowned upon, adultery quickens general disgust, stealing is 
regarded as a crime against society, perjury is punishable by 
law, and covetousness dare not come to the front, for the 
spirit of the covetous man is regarded as low and mean. 
Neighborly love is extoied, and love of God, it is allowed, 
may deepen and intensify the love of humanity. Granting, 
therefore, that the Church is weak and futile, it is not be- 
cause the Moral Law lias lost its power on the consciences 
of men. 

Do men refuse to become Christians because Christian 
character has lost its charm ? I think not. Character is 
capital the world over, and the true Christian maintains a 
complete character. No one is willing to confess that he 
holds Christian virtue at a discount. The world may be 
Avicked, yet, while it hates hypocrisy, and despises the spirit 
of whining sanctimoniousness, it admires the man who 
would die rather than cause principle to blush; it honors the 
man who will not lie, who is not for sale, whose virtues are 
sterling, and whose very impulses are formed under the 
scrutiny of " the all seeing eye". If the Church is feeble, 
therefore, it is not because Christian character has lost its 
charm in the world. 

Nor is the Church inefficient because the Bible is un- 
true. Deism has assailed it, but it has failed to prove it 
false, or even to any considerable extent to shake the faith 
which the world has reposed in it. Gibbon, Paine, Voltaire, 
are dead, but the Bible still advises men of kt Teperance, 
Righteousness and a Judgment to come. 11 Naturalism in- 
deed objects to the supernatural that is in the Scriptures; 
but the reason that would lift the hand divine from the 
Bible must restrain it in the universe, it iusists that all the 
phenomena of nature are produced by blind force acting 
necessarily; yet despite naturalism, "'the Heavens declare 



78 THE BURIED TALENT. 



the glory of God and the Book even more sweetly than do 
the stars. Spiritualism tries to shift inspiration from the 
Bible, and to place it in the inward consciouness of human- 
ity, nor can it be denied that man is inspired sometimes, 
but the spirit of Scripture feeds and satisfies the loftiest as- 
pirations of the human soul. Rationalism has indeed 
overthrown a few of the darling theories of men, and has 
attempted to deprive the Word of its authoritative charac- 
ter, but according to its own confession, " the ideal, the 
spirit still survives, and this must shine in its own moral 
splendor. 1 ' It cannot be claimed therefore that the moral 
impotency of the Church is the result of the falseness of 
its Scriptures. 

If then, neither the impotency of the Moral Law, nor 
the unloveliness of Christian character, nor the untruth- 
fulness of Scripture can account for the spiritual indiffer- 
ence of the unsaved world — what is the cause ? Why is 
the Church in many localities so unsuccessful? I answer, 
the denominations by frequent abuses of Christianity, by 
a spirit of sectarian intolerance, by the inconsistency of 
professed Christians, and especially by the inertia and spir- 
itual lassitude of its own members has impeded its own 
progress. This spiritual indolence is an obstacle in the way 
af the progress of the Gospel far greater than any philoso- 
phy or infidelity that ever assailed it. The buried or mis- 
directed talents of the Church is the principal cause of its 
past and its present failures. 

There are several reasons why the Church thus buries 
its talents; for example some Christians are inactive because 
they misapprehend the nature of God. Even good people 
have indulged the thought that he is u a hard master, reap- 
ing where he hath not strown", and requiring duties that 
cannot be done; therefore, however faithful in other things 



THE BURIED TALENT. 79 

they are neglectful of spiritual responsibilities; but God is 
not such a master. He knows all the burdens that we car- 
ry, he entrusts those with five talents, those with two, and 
this with one talent. '" Every man according to his several 
ability." 

Others imagine that the little they can do is not worth 
doing. So, perhaps, thought the servant with one talent, 
who went and hid his lord's monej T ; yet if he had used it 
it would have doubled in exactly the same time that it took 
to double the two or the five. Much is lost because we are 
afraid and conceal or withhold the little ability we have. 
If the men and the women in the Church who have only 
one talent would all arouse themselves there would be a 
grand movement in the " Valley of Dry Bones 1 '. The 
great dead-weight that is pulling down the cause of Christ 
is the thousands, perhaps millions of one-talented people 
who withdraw from active service under the plea that they 
can cultivate a solitary piety. 

But what is more damaging to the cause of Christ 
even than indolence; is a certain tendency among people of 
good endowments to turn the Church into a board of trade 
and sell their talents to the highest bidder. There are 
members of the Christian Church who, like that automaton 
bird which an ingenious French mechanic put on exhibi- 
tion at Vienna, have sweet voices, beaming eyes, and bril- 
liant plumage, and they can sing the praises of God in the 
sanctuary with spirit and with power, but their song is 
awakened by no inward soul-life, they never indulged in an 
outbreak of gratitude to God for his goodness, and to start 
their music you must wind them up with a golden key. 
There is a superabundance of talent in the Church of God, 
its natural gifts consecrated and sanctified are sufficient to 
make it the Kingdom of Heaven indeed. What a pity so 



80 THE BURIED TALENT. 



many talents should be buried and hid out of sight, be- 
cause selfish souls demand pay, in dollars and cents, before 
they will serve God. 

The result of inaction is forfeiture of ability. No 
matter what may be the cause, indolence, indifference, dis- 
affection, apostacy, selfishness; once cease to work and soon 
you will forget how to work; neglect to take up your cross, 
and soon you will have neither disposition or strength to 
to touch it. Muscles unused lose their power, so ability 
unemployed will soon become disability. And that is one 
difficulty with the Church to-day; hundreds of its members 
are useless because they are out of practice. When indis- 
position prevails the Church is like a great Corliss engine, 
endowed with wonderful capacity but silent and inactive, 
because th^re is no steam in the chest and no fire in ths 
furnace. Give us the motive power of Love and we can 
move the world. This brings us to consider 

III. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH IN THE PREMISES. 

Christ declares that " the Kingdom of Heaven' 1 , that 
is the Church, or the people over whom Christ reigns may 
be compared to a number of servants, to each of whom has 
been entrusted certain important duties, which, during the 
temporary absence of the king must be faithfully perform- 
ed, and in such a manner as shall promote the best interests 
of the servant, the glory of the kingdom and the honor of 
the king, and that "a£ ter a long time the Lord ' will come 
and reckon with them." 

That reckoning is to be with each individual, not with 
the Avhole Church at once; each Christian, the successful 
and the unsuccessful, will be called to account. God will 
not say well done good and faithful Church, you have a c- 
complished a great work, the redemption of this lost world 



THE BURIED TALENT. 81 

u enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, 11 but each servant, 
the 'aithful and the slothful, the good and the wicked, 
mast appear personally before the Lord, at the reckoning 
that is coming there will b<? no opportunity for the servant 
who has done nothing, to slip in under cover of one who 
has been faithful unto death. Each must answer for him- 
self. 

That day of reckoning will be a joyful day for every 
true soul; it will bring the joy of satisfaction, the joy that 
comes to him who has done the best he could; it will be gol- 
den with the joy of approbation when the Master will say 
u well done"; it is no weakness to desire to be approved for 
our fidelity; it will be memorable with the joy of promotion, 
having been faithful u over a few things", how. inspiring to 
be made "ruler over many things"; besides that day will be 
full of the joy of reward, rewards so rich that u eye hath not 
seen, heart hath not conceived." Oh! think of entering into 
the joy of the Lord, and sitting down on his throne. 

That day will be a sad day for the fearful and the un- 
faithful; in the presence of an assembled universe, what 
terror will strike the soul, when the Lord shall say u thou 
wicked and slothful, good for nothing and unprofitable ser- 
vant, enter into outer darkness," and be divested of what 
few endowments you have. It is an awful thought that, 
because we have abused, or have not used for the glory of 
God the talents that here we possessed, we shall loose them 
all yonder. Perhaps this will be the punishment of the 
unfaithful; each exalted genius who ungenerously hid his 
talent in the earth, or selfishly endeavored to barter it for 
gold, will in the life to come be doomed to see that talent 
WHste away. When our best gifts shall thus fall to naught 
there will be bondage, darkness, " weeping and angry 
gnashing of teeth." 



82 THE BURIED TALENT. 

In conclusion, we may observe that the practical points 
of this parable cannot be intended for Church members 
only; no greater moral obligations rest on them than rest 
on other people ; it is as much the duty of the sinner to be 
in allegiance to the Kingdom of God as for the Christian. 
One distinguishing feature between the Church member 
and the outsider is that he who is within recognizes his 
moral responsibility, but he who is without ignores or 
evades it; neglect is equally as culpable in one case as the 
other. 

The fact is, every creature is a w 'servant", and God has 
commissioned each servant to perform a certain work Ac- 
cording to his ability", and endowed him for his work, 
therefore if you, my unconverted friend, have concealed 
your talent in the earth, you cannot escape the judgment of 
the last day any more than will the delinquent Church 
member. 

Standing before your Judge, what plea would you 
make? Would you accuse God of being u a hard master"? 
Every star that shines, every flower that unfold* its beauty, 
every joyous note of singing bird, every diadem of intelli- 
gence, every human soul, so precious that a world could not 
equal its worth would rebuke you for your folly. God, your 
Master, is Love. 

Would you accuse him of "reaping where he has not 
sown"? Such a plea would be as absurd as the other; look 
at yourself, God has given you a heart-nature, a thinking 
mind, a life-time full of golden opportunities, a spirit capa- 
ble of communion with the Father of Spirits, and a field 
for infinite, intellectual and spiritual development; from 
such a sowing God has a right to expect a harvest of im- 
provement. 

Would you in excuse of your neglect plead that you 



THE BURIED TALENT. 83 

were "afraid 1 '? Afraid of what? Of some dear friend who 
has entrusted you with his property? This is what your 
divine Lord has done. Afraid of your fellow-men? You 
fearlessly do business among them every day. Afraid cf 
yourself? How strange! You would trust yourself al- 
ways where you would not dare to trust another. You have 
not feared to do wrong, but you have been afraid to do right; 
thus you are self -condemned, the plea of fear conde urns you; 
there must be something radically wrong in that man who 
is afraid to be true. 

Before that Judge who knows all would a sinner in his 
sober senses presume to make the plea that his talent, which 
for a long time has been unused and concealed in the gross 
things of earth, is pure and perfect as when first bestowed? 
Try such an experiment in other things, neglect your farm 
for a quarter of a century, or your business for a decade of 
years, or refuse to exercise your power of thought for six 
months, or sit down and do nothing, not even use a muscle 
of your body for a whole week and see, when you have 
made the experiment, whether your farm, or business, or 
intellect, or strength has deteriorated. So spiritual faculties 
unused will lose their lustre, concealed in the earth they 
must deteriorate. My sinful friend, your character before 
Grod is shriveling and your moral nature is a starveling to- 
day, because you have neglected to employ the crowning 
faculties of your being, in the blessed work of promoting 
the glory of the Kingdom of Grod among men. 

Your talent will always be buried in the earth until your 
heart-nature has been unearthed. "One cannot serve Grod 
and mammon. 11 If there is'no divine life in the soul, it is 
because the soul is engrossed with sensuous thought and 
sensuous living. He who is thus engrossed has not only 
buried <>ne of his talents in the earth, but the whole of 
them, himself included. The whole man is in need of a 



84 



THE BURIED TALENT. 



resurrecting power. Christ, like the spring, has come to 
quicken the dead. The Sun of Righteousness shines 
brightly and healingly on the world. If men would look 
to that light they would grow toward it, they would leave 
the low things of earth and reach out after the blessings of 
Heaven, and then their talents would be called out, men 
would live as the flowers do, to beautify and benefit the 
world; nay more, they would live as Christ did. not for 
themselves but for others, consecrating their gifts to the 
good of others they themselves would be the gainers; love 
would broaden their manhood, widen their sympathies, keep 
their talents bright, intensify their hope and deepen their 
joy. Oh! let us seek for this larger, this more expanding 
life, this life that comes of earnest work for G >d. 

"Earth has engrossed our love too long, 

Tis time I o lift our eyes 
Upward, dear Father, to thy throne. 

And to our native skies." 



r-^^-i 



'-^@$S>t 




.? 6} • 






PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 



Another parable spake he unto them; the Kingdom of Heaven is 
like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three meas- 
ures of meal, till the whole was leavened.— Mat. 13, 33. 

Here is what might be called a very strange mixture, 
Heaven, Woman, Meal and Leaven; yet such a mixture as 
is quite common in our experiences. We could not well get 
along without each of them; nay, we must have them all. 

Were it not for the thing spoken of, namely. " the 
Kingdom of Heaven' 1 , which perhaps has not the appreci- 
ation it deserves. Each of the other substantives mentioned 
in the text might be, and indeed have been, badly interpre- 
ted. Thus: Thackery represents all women as being either 
'* weak or wicked 1 ', and even the Bible declares, u Aclam was 
not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the 
transgression. 1 ' Meal, too, is suggestive of coarseness, glut- 
tony, grin ding, littleness and even deceitfulness ; thus Tenny- 
son speaks of those who "dabbling in the fount of 'flictive 
tears, nursed by ww /^-mouthed philanthropies, divorce the 
feeling from her mate the deed. 1 ' And as for leaven, that 
is, 3 T east, what is it but bubbles of carbonic acid, transform- 
ing the starch of the meal into alcohol, which is, as the 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVER. 



temperance orators affirm, the very essence of corruption 
and death. 

Leaven in the Scriptures generally means something 
that is bad. Paul speaks of il purging out the old leaven 11 . 
Christ bade his desciples to k> beware of the leaven of the 
Pharisees 11 . The Jews, possibly because unleavened bread 
was a symbol of their bondage in . Egypt, refused to eat 
bread that had been leavened. They were also commanded 
to put every particle of leaven out of their houses during 
the time of their sacred feasts. Even the ancient Romans, 
idolators as they were, disliked the use of leaven in sacred 
things, because, as Plutarch said, " the leaven is born of 
c HTiiptiou and corrupts the mass with which it is 
mingled." 

But the leaven cannot be used in a bad sense in this 
parable, because that which is unquestionably good is com- 
pared to it. The parable does not teach that error, or here- 
sy, or apostacy, or "the mystery of iniquity 1 ', or the cor- 
ruptions of the world are like unto leaven. If such had 
been declared the figure would have been a very truthful 
one, for all unseen forces that are at work beneath the sur- 
face of society might properly be compared of leaven; but 
it is not such that Christ is speaking of; he speaks of the 
silent mightiness of his Gospel, and of his spiritual reign in 
human hearts and the world : he does not say that such is 
leaven, but that ''the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto 
leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of 
meal, " till the whole was leavened 11 . 

Those interpretations therefore that throw an unhope- 
ful light on these matchless parables of Our Lord, as for 
instance, the theory that the mustard seed represents a 
deep and widespead worldliness, and the leaven an all-em- 
bracing corruption, which is to work in and gradually over- 
come the Church, cannot in reason be accepted, but on the 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 87 

contrary, it must be concluded that, pure and precious as is 
the Kingdom of Heaven, so is the noiseless but wide-work- 
ing leaven, to which it is likened. 

[t is not to be supposed that perfection must be as- 
cribed to the meal ; the very fact that the heavenly leaven 
is to be hid in the mass of meal, suggests the imperfection 
of the mass, that is its need of transformation. It is ad- 
mitted that in a sense the meal is to part with its native 
characteristics, the leaven is to assimilate the mass; the 
meal therefore represents something which is of itself im- 
perfect, something that can be changed or improved by be- 
ing brought into contact with the leaven of which Jesus 
speaks, the warming, penetrating, transforming forces of 
the Kingdom of Christ. 

To make this matter still more evident, it is suggested 
that there are three measures of meal, that is three parts. 
The old theologians thought that the tnree measures of 
meal stood for the three parts of the known world, Europe, 
Asia and Africa, and concluded, rightfully too, that the 
spiritual forces of the Kingdom will ultimately penetrate, 
quicken and transform those great continents, converting 
them from idolatry to Christianity, from sin to righteour- 
ness, from self to God. Others of the early fathers, Augus- 
tine for instance, taught that the three measures of meal 
represented respectively Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three 
sons of Noah, whose descendents embrace all the inhabi- 
tants of the earth, and that the Gospel of the Kingdom, as 
it shall in its future unfoldings touch every human heart, 
will turn all the children of men from darkness unto light,and 
"from the power of Satan unto God, 11 a blessed thought, 
and as I believe a logical and truthful conclusion. 

We shall be safe also in regarding the three measures 
of meal as standing for man in his individuality and entirety 



88 PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 



his body, Ins mind and his soul; nor should we exaggerate 
the truth if we were to declare that according as man shall 
allow himself to be influenced by the sanctifying spirit of 
the Gospel, its healthful, quickening, spiritualizing power. 
he will stand forth a perfect man; his body free from dis- 
ease, his intellect exalted, his soul redeemed and fitted for 
the companionship of the glorified above. 

Now. in regard to this Gospel leaven, the text suggests 
four facts, namely, that it is an independent power, that it 
is a hidden power, that it is a transforming power and that 
it is an all-pervading power. 

1 . Then the Leaven of the Gospel is an independent 
power. Christ taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is not 
a component part of this universe; it does not inherently 
belong- in human nature; it is not the result of any intellect- 
ual or spiritual quality that man may possess; it can indeed 
harmonize this universe with itself; it can unify and assim- 
ilate humanity; it can touch the soul immortal with super- 
human power and lift it into unearthly excellence, but is ab- 
solutely independent of man, or the world in which he 
lives. 

If this doctrine of the independence of the Gospel, as 
taught by Christ, is true, what becomes of the theory of 
evolution? It may not affect the chronology of geology, 
the Gospel may belong to another world than this, yet this 
planet may have been rolling in its orbit a hundred million 
years. It may not affect the idea that life on this earth be- 
gan with a few simple forms, mere cells or bubbles, out of 
which all existing forms of animal existences have been de- 
veloped; but it does materially affect the opinion which has 
recently been advanced and warmly advocated, namely, that 
the Christian civilization of to-day is the result of the pro- 
gressiveness of the human race. It does affect the idea that 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 89 

the Gospel is nothing but a development of the human 
mind. Christ does not so teach, but he does teach that the 
Gospel is of the Kingdom of Heaven, and as independent of 
earth as is the Leaven of the mass it leavens. 

The Holy Scriptures recognize the great, the wonderful 
fact of growth, they declare that " God made every tree to 
grow, 1 ' that "the thistle grows," that "the dust groweth into 
hardness/ 1 that men morally may "grow like the cedars, 11 
that "faith .i,roweth exceedingly, 11 and that the body of 
Christianity in the world shall ultimately "grow into a Holy 
Temple in the Lord 11 ; but such growth is invariably preceded 
by proper preparation and planting. In order to a tree or a 
thistle, a seed must first be dropped into the soil; in order 
to a moral growth a moral principle must first be introduced 
into the mind; in order to faith the heart must receive some- 
thing that it can believe, and in order to the promised Tem- 
ple of Christianity, which in the future shall cover the earth 
and reach to the Heavens, there must first be the planting 
of the corner-stone and then the gradual upbuilding. It is 
so to-day, no people or empire become Christians by evolu- 
tion; wherever the Gospel has grown into power, "a sower 
has first gone forth to sow 11 ; there was no Gospel in Canaan 
until Christ planted it there ; it grew in Asia-Minor because 
Paul and Silas and others sowed there the precious seed; it 
spread throughout the Roman empire because Christian 
people propagated the Heavenly truth, and it is spreading 
the wide-world over at the present time because certain 
faithful followers ot the Lord Jesus are busy sowing Gospel 
seed " beside all waters 11 . 

If the Gospel in certain localities is not spreading with 
that rapidity and vigor that it ought, it is because it waits 
to be applied by some ready agent. Truth of any kind does 
not take forcible possession of the mind and heart; Gospel 
truth is not an exception to this rule; it is not incorporated 



90 PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN". 

by any energy of its own; where there are no agents or in- 
struments, the good seed remains unsown, and the wonted 
harvest is not gathered; hence it is said '"the Kingdom of 
Heaven is like nnto leaven that woman t >ok and hid in three 
measures of meal 11 ; you and [ are to take and hide it; the 
Kingdom cannot grow while we fold our hands and dream 
of pretty theories of evolution. Give us "sowers. 11 faithful 
laborers in God's vineyard; he has already ordained the laws 
and decreed the conditions. Give us workmen, [ say, that 
needeth not to be ashamed, and to-morrow you shall witness 
a Gospel evolution. 

It might be supposed, were we to read this parable of 
the leaven by itself, that men are not the chosen agents to 
do this great work; but, considering all the parables in their 
scope, we see that man is a chosen instrument as well as 
woman, for not only is "the Kingdom of Heaven like leaven 
which a woman took, 1 ' but it is also " like a grain of mus- 
tard seed that a man took 11 . Men, as well as women, there- 
fore, are agents, and Christ spoke as he did, not because 
either sex is rejected as workers, but because it is more 
proper to say that woman shall hide the leaven and man 
should sow the seed, than it would to say that man should 
hide the leaven and woman shall sow the seed. Yet, as na- 
ture dictates a particular sphere for each, so in the moral 
universe we expect to find a special service allotted to mm 
and to woman. This difference of sphere and office is sug- 
gested in the Word of God; the parable of the mustard 
seed and that 'of the leaven almost emphasize this differ- 
ence. As in the vegetable kingdom there are certain plants 
and trees that grow by accretions from without and certain 
others that grow by accretions within, so in the differing 
phazes of the Heavenly Kingdom there is such a two-fold 
development. The Gospel has both an inward force and an 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 9l 

outward expansion. The parable of the mustard seed illus- 
trates the growth external, while that of the leaven illus- 
trates its inner forcefulness. Now, man finds his sphere 
more in public than in private, and woman hers more in 
private than in public. One has to do with the external 
propagation of the Grospel, the other with its internal life; 
one impresses truth on the mind, the other on the heart; 
one formulates systems of theology, the other forms 
religious character; thus there is a beautiful significance in 
the figures employed by Christ when he said "the Kingdom 
of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which a man 
took and hid in his field," and again "the Kingdom of 
Heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in 
three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." 

There is, then, a place for each, a work for each one 
to do, a place for the sower and reaper, a place for man and 
for woman, and a place for the little child; for "out of the 
mouths of babes hath Grod ordained strength." The seed 
waits to be sown, the leaven waits to be hid ; living germs of 
Gospel truth wait te be planted in the human mind, and 
hid in the human heart. The work does not require great 
intellectual acumen, nor wide scientific experience; it is but 
to implant a principle. The leaven is ready, who will ap- 
ply it to the three measures of meal that represent needy 
humanity? All the Kingdom of Grace, all the infinite 
truth of Grod were of no avail unless applied. 

"A lady, recently converted, felt an impulse to pray for 
others, but her little daughter was the only one who 
prayed with her. ,w Oh, mother," she said, " let me go ' 
and tell the neighbors what the Lord hath done for our 
souls." " They will laugh at you, darling, and call it all 
delusion." " Bat 1 think they will believe me." So she 
ran and told the old shoemaker across the way; he was 



92 PAKABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 

moved to tears, lie began to pray for himself. Thus the 
leaven was planted, it took effect; he persuaded others. 
Soon the village was aroused, and fifty found the Savior. 
If, with a sincere love for souls, we take this Gospel leaven 
and hide it in the human hearts, we shall see that it will 
work out similar results. 

2. The leaven of the Gospel is a hidden power. u Like 
unto leaven which a woman took and hid. 11 There are sev- 
eral senses in which the truth of the Gospel is hidden. It 
is hidden because not discovered by those who are unwilling 
to find it. " None are so blind as those who refuse to see." 
A man may close his eyes to the evidences of creatorship in 
the universe, and with false blindness, say there is no God. 
He may look out on nature and behold its variety, beauty, 
order, a glorious empire where all things work according to 
a predetermined plan, and because he does not want to be- 
lieve, declare that God does not rale. He may resort to 
some kind of blind metaphyisics, and try to make it appear 
that the Gospel is a myth, or a perished theory, while he 
counts time from its birth, lives in the midst of its monu- 
ments, and sees its results in civilization, education, hope, 
and in a mighty love-power that is moving to the moral 
conquest of^ the world. To hundreds and thousands 
of our fellow-men the Gospel is nothing, because they try 
to find nothing hi it. As the apostle said " if our Gospel be 
hid it is hid to them that are lost. 11 

It is hidden because they who truly seek surely find. 
In another parable the Savior likens the Kingdom of Heaven 
"to a treasure hid in a field, 11 like silver in the rock or gold 
in the mine, waiting to reward the diligence of the explorer. 
The field is the wisdom of God. Let a reasoning man 
traverse that field, and surely as he shall discover the divine 
dotency in a thousand forms, as when it lifts an oak out of 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVES". 93 

an acorn cup, or builds for the birdling a wing- that can 
surmount the air, or makes a chain that holds a planet in 
its orbit, so he mil find the law by which a sin-lost soul 
may be redeemed. Need I say that millions have found it, 
found it in the revealed Word, for "the commandment 
therein is a lamp, and the law is a light, and the reproofs of 
instruction are the way of life." Nay, finding Christ by 
faith the soul finds a sanctifying power; the truth he ut- 
tered is "the power of Grod unto salvation, to everyone that 
believes." * ; rle was in the world and the world knew him 
not, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to 
become the sons of God. 11 

The leaven of the Gospel is hidden because it is itself a 
power, and all power is invisible. Archimedes said "give 
me a place to stand on and I can move the world. 11 Sup- 
pose the place were found, the levers adjusted, and this old 
globe began to tilt and swing, on what spot would you put 
your finger and say, '"here is the power?" There is power 
in the torrent that leaps over Niagara; it might, if applied, 
move all the machinery of the earth without loss to itself; 
but the sleepless giant of the flood has never been seen by 
the human eye. We see the long, moving train of cars, but 
cannot see the mighty genius that pulls them. We see tel- 
egraph poles, wires, batteries, but not the subtle something 
that writes your message a thousand miles away. The hu- 
man will is a power, it can break away from the bondage 
of sin, or leap fi-om the embrace of omnipotent love, but 
the will is invisible. There is power in pure character, it 
has tranquilized excited mobs when sword and cannon could 
not do it; yet character is something that is felt, not seen. 
So the Kingdom of Heaven is hid, or unseen, because a 
power in itself. " It cometh not by observation; 1 ' it is spir- 
itual and has a spiritualizing power; it comes softly as 
autumn blushes come upon the fruit, silently as falls the 



94 PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN". 

snow upon the plain, quietly as the frost-fern upon the 
window; it comes sweetly as the spring, insinuatingly as the 
dawn, and all quickening as the spirit that breathed life into 
inanimate creation. Though unseen 

"It can minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with a sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
That weighs upon the heart." 

The leaven of the Gospel is hidden because ineffectual 
until received in the heart. Whatever of outward mani- 
festation the Gospel may possess, it must be the result of 
its hidden life; if comparable to a field of aspiring, out^ 
reaching mustard, the secret of its growth is its inward 
power; or if likened to a mass of leavened meal, the expan- 
sion of the mass is due to the force that has been concealed 
within. With this fact in view Paul very properly de- 
clared that " he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circum- 
cision is that of the heart in the spirit, and not in the letter, 
whose praise is not of man but of God." 

Inasmuch therefore as the Kingdom is within, its power 
is not to be estimated by any mere externalities, it is not in 
cathedrals and churches, not in rites and ceremonies, not in 
family antecedents, nor wealth, or pomp, or display, not in 
high-sounding names and titles, not in orthodox professions 
of religion, all this may be but a gaudy bauble, blown into 
appearance by a windy arrogance, ready to burst at the mo- 
ment of greatest magnificence. 

If a man is a Christian it is because the Christ-life has 
been made to permeate his inner nature, just as the leaven 
has been incorporated in and thoroughly mixed with the 
meal. It is a truth that takes possession of the mind, a 
conviction that moves the will, an inspiration that fires the 



PAEABLE OF THE LEA YEN". 95 

affections, a divine energy that subdues, reanimates, con- 
trols the entire man; a force working from within outward- 
ly, as all reformation must. and displaying its presence in a 
good life and a godly conversation. We are all in the 
Kingdom, bnt is the Kingdom in us ? 

A young lady of my acquaintance, who had been an 
invalid for years, pale, emaciated, very feeble, annoyed with 
a constant cough, each breath a burden, said to me when I 
visited her. 'I am very happy in my religious experience, 
it is real, peace and joy are in my heart, but I cannot testi- 
fy, I would like to live to do the will of my Heavenly Father, 
instead I give to him my life," and when I considered her 
patience, her faith, her cheerfulness, her interest in whatever 
might interest others, though there was no noise, no demon- 
stration, I knew that the Kingdom in its power was in her 
heart. So when the Grospel is in us, hidden like the leaven 
in the meal, it is a well-spring of purity and sweetness, 
having leavened our moral natures it makes us a leavening 
power to others. 

3. The figure of the leaven suggests also that the 
Kingdom of Heaven is a transforming power. The leaven- 
ing process is simple and understood by all ; first the leaven 
that is a few living cells of the yeast plant, is put into the 
meal, the starch or sugar of the meal is then converted into 
alcohol by contact with the particles of yeast, which in 
turn diffuses carbonic acid all through the substance, caus- 
ing the dough to rise, while the alcohol passes off in the form 
of vapor and is lost in the air, the dough in the meanwhile 
having undergone a complete change in its substance. So 
the leaven of the Grospel coalesces with man's moral nature, 
permeating it with a new life, purging its corruptions, lift- 
ing it into a higher sphere, and produces not an entirely 
new creation but a complete transformation. 



96 PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN". 

This change-working power of Christianity has made 
for itself a wonderful history in the world. Planted hy 
Christ and his desciples, working from the center outwardly, 
by degrees it made itself felt until at length the whole Roman 
woi Id was more or less leavened by its power. Nor did the 
leaven of the Gospel cease its operations after the downfall 
of Rome, but insinuating its influence into the midst of 
Teutonic tribes, it changed them from a barbarous to a civ- 
ilized people. Take for instance that wing of the Teutonic 
race, that fell like an ominous thunder cloud on the semi- 
savage tribes of Britain, at the time of the in- 
vasion they worshipped heroes and heavenly bod- 
ies. On Sunday they worshipped the Sun. On 
Monday the Moon, on Tuesday a hero whom they called 
Tiue, on Wednesday Wodin or Odin, on Thursday Thor, his 
son, on Friday Freya his wife, and on Saturday Soeter, a 
water god. Yet idolatrous, warlike, savage though those 
Saxons were, scarcely had two centuries passed away before 
all those Saxon peoples were converted to Christianity; the 
leaven working in their midst made for them a peculiar 
national character and an independent Teutonic Church 
which was the brightest star in the whole ecclesiastical 
firmament; nay more, it put an end to civil war and greatly 
modified the bloody fierceness with which war had been car- 
ried on, so that, as Freeman says, t; the heathen English 
who had been satisfied with nothing less than the exter- 
mination of their enemies, deemed it sufficient to reduce 
them to political subje rtion, when those heathen became 
Christian." 

Thus we may trace the history of this Gospel leaven 
in its progress thrugh the world, and discover that it exerts 
its transforming power, not only on those who willingly 
accept it, but also on society in general. True, even in 
Christian countries there are many who live and die in moral 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN". 97 

ignorance, sunken to the lowest depths of vice, no better, 
possibly worse, than many heathen are in character; yet on 
the whole how marked the difference between Christian and 
heathen lands; the influence of the Gospel is felt through- 
out the land and more or less in every circle of society. It 
does not change every heart, but the general tone and char- 
acter of the nation is better for having received the 
Gospel. 

But this leavening power is most evident where it has 
been hid in the individual heart, for the change is not 
merely in dogma or opinion, but the secret springs of life, 
the whole character is transformed thereby; it awakens 
new thoughts and feelings, new hopes and desires, it reveals 
new grounds for trust and confidence, new sources of hap- 
piness, new motives for action. As Spurgeon said " none of 
the fanciful transformations of which Ovid sang, can rival 
these matchless workings of God." 

Christian, what has this transforming power done for 
you? Perhaps it has swept profanity from your lips, or 
subdued the rising passions of your soul, or cleansed the 
thoughts of your heart; it has arrested your idle pursuit of 
earthly phantoms; it has made Christ your satisfying por- 
tion; a poor, homeless wanderer in the world, it has made 
you a child of God and an heir of eternal life. Perhaps 
you hardly understand the change, it is so sweetly mysteri- 
ous, it is " like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and 
we hear the sound thereof ;" or you may, like the Scotch 
girl who was converted under the preaching of Whitfield, 
say "something [ know is changed, it may be the world, it 
may be my heart ; there is a great change somewhere, for 
everything is different from what once it was." No matter 
whether you understand it or not, if you have experienced 
such a blessed transformation, you have an argument and 
an evidence that no opposing philosophy can gainsay. 



98 PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 

4. Finally, the leaven of the Gospel is an all-pervading 
power. " It is like unto leaven which a woman took and 
hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened'". 
Men in every age since the days of Herod have endeavored 
to annihilate the Christian religion. Nearly two thousand 
years have passed away but that religion is not extinguished 
yet. The leaven has been at work; that it will leaven the 
whole earth is far more probable now than ever before. 
Christ was never concerned about his cause. He foresaw 
innumerable obstacles "and oppositions, yet calmly declared 
that notwithstanding "fowls of the air, 1 ' "tribulation and 
persecution," "the deceitfulness of riches,' 1 and the cunning 
of the " devil," his Gospel should win, it should secure for 
itself an all-pervading victory. 

This thought is chief in the parable of the leaven; that 
of the mustard seed suggests that the Gospel of the King- 
dom shall become very great in the earth ; but the parable 
of the leaven is a prophecy and promise of the Lord Jesus 
Christ that the Gospel shall assimilate the whole world, and 
touch and sanctify the secret springs of every living soul. 
The figure of the leaven is a strong declaration of this fact. 
Leaven that has once been incorporated in a mass of meal 
cannot be extracted, and not only so, it leavens every parti- 
cle that it touches, and in turn each touched particle be- 
comes a leaven. So the Gospel has come to earth ever to 
remain; no force or philosophy can possibly eradicate it; it 
sanctifies everything it touches, it transforms its foes into 
friends, it will ultimately subdue all things unto itself. 

This being the case, redeemed man, a world that has 
been leavened by the truth and spirit of the Gospel will have 
restored unto it all that has been lost by sin. 

Man's original domination over fish, and fowl, cattle 
and creeping things must be fully restored. 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 99 

Man's promised supremacy over the physical geography 
of the globe must be realized in redemption. What, for 
instance, is u a desert made to blossom as the rose" ? What 
is the promised "new earth" of the Apocalypse? What 
are they all but the old earth improved and sanctified by the 
skill of a redeemed race? 

Redeemed men will possess a perfect body also, for 
"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise 
of the life that now is/' Purity of heart and the pos- 
sibilities of the inquiring mind must affect the physical 
Irame of man, as the stern physiognomy of the old Roman 
was the result of his education and employment, as the 
beauty of the Greek was occasioned by Grecian culture, so 
a Gospelized and baptised manhood must develop a new 
creature in Christ Jesus,a being that shall need no death ordeal 
as a preparation for eternal life. u Behold i show you a 
mystery," says the apostle; "we shall not all sleep, but we 
shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye;" that must 
be a perfect body that is not to be permitted to see corrup- 
tion. 

Man redeemed will be a thinker too. In the great 
apostacy man to a considerable extent lost his power to 
think. One of the grand objects of the Kingdom of 
Heaven is to renew the intelligence of the race. " Be ye 
transformed," says the apostle, " by the renewing of your 
mind that ye may prove what is that good, acceptable and 
perfect will of God." Indeed, it is promised that the mil- 
lennial glory shall be a glory of perfect intellectualism. k, The 
knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the water 
covers the sea." 

Mankind, leavened by the leavening power of the Gos- 
pel, will become purely and perfectly scientific. Even the 



100 PARABLE OE THE LEAVEK. 

great engineers, and the rich railroad kings of this progress- 
and scientific age, under the wonderful impulses which a 
Gospel civilization has given to them, are, though they 
know it not, helping to fulfill the glorious prophecy of 
Isaiah. " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight 
in the desert a highway for our God, every valley exalt, 
every mountain and hill-side make low, and make the 
crooked straight and the rough places plain, and the glory 
of the Lord shall be revealed. 11 Who knows but some day 
the whole scientific world will succumb to the humanitarian 
purposes of the Gospel. Perhaps, in the redemption, elec- 
tricity, for instance, will be sanctified to the service of God 
and the blessing of man. It is possible that the ocean cable 
shall, to-morrow, become the Gospel trumpet that will give 
no uncertain sound. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose 
that "the angel that will fly through the midst of Heaven^ 
having the everlasting Gospel to preach, 11 will be nothing 
more or less than the spirit of the lightning. That new 
electrical beam that is about to break upon the world and to 
hang like a meteor over palace and city, plain and moun- 
tain, superseding every other artificial light, may literally 
drive night away and enable some scientist to say, with the 
enthusiasm of Joshua, "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon, 
and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon.' 1 Indeed, by the 
magic power of electricity and through some more delicately 
constructed telephone, the songs of angels may be softly 
whispered by our hearth-stones or by our beds of death. At 
least it is declared in the Word of Divine Truth that the 
Lord " maketh spirits his angels, a flame of fire his minister, 
the winds his messengers, and the lightnings his servants; 1 ' 
that he directeth the lightning unto the ends of the earth, 
and " maketh a way for it. 11 Doubtless the significance of 
hese divine utterances is not yet fully understood, but each 



PAEABLE OF THE LEAVEN. 101 



advancing age, each new discovery in science, each new in- 
vention in art shows that the divine purpose is "ripening 
fast, unfolding ever hour,' 1 and that when the leaven of 
truth shall have leavened the whole mass, and the world 
has been fully redeemed, all the laws of nature will be 
under control of man. 

But the best of all is, when the three measures of meal 
shall be fully leavened, sin will be done away, righteousness 
will dwell in Heaven and on earth, " The Tabernacle of 
God shall be among men. He will dwell with them; they 
shall be his people, and God himself shall be their God.' 1 
Then every soul will be saved, every heart will be pure, 
every lip will be inspired, every tongue shall confess, every 
knee shall bow." I want to be on earth at that time. I 
want to shout with the angels "it is finished," " the whole 
is leavened," "the great redemption is accomplished," "Hal- 
lelujah the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." 

In conclusion, I feel impelled to make two or three 
practical suggestions. 

1. The glorious period of the world's redemption maj^ 
be near or distant. Each soul, by his influence, hastens or 
retards that day. Friend, which are you doing ? 

2. The truth of the Gospel presses now upon your 
conscience ; Christ in spirit waits to work a moral transfor- 
mation in your soul. Will you resist? Do you say "go 
thy way for this time?" Oh, brother, to-morrow you die. 
Now is the accepted time 

3. There is only one way to be saved; the power of 
Grace must be hid in your heart. 



102 



PARABLE OF THE LEAVEtf. 



4. There is only one source from which salvation 
comes; not philosophy, not science, but Christ. "There is 
no other name." 

" As some rare perfume in a vase of clay, 
Pervades it with fragrance not its own, 
So when he dwells in deathless souls, 
All Heavenly sweetness seems around them thrown." 




THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 



For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth : to 
the Jew first, and also to the Greek.— .Roman* 1, 16. 

Nature, it is said, has its limitations; things are known 
by their forms, their qualities, their characteristics. It is 
said that men carry their "sign-boards" with them, so that 
one who is versed in human nature may, by the walk of 
a man, by his laugh, by the shape of his mouth, by the 
color of his eyes, the intonations of his voice, or by the 
bumps on his head, read his mental and moral proba- 
bilities. 

Yet it is not true that such laws have no exceptions. 
Nature has been known to break through her ordinary en- 
vironments; great minds have been supported by feeble 
bodies ; coarse organisms have produced refined and suscept- 
ible natures. Men frequently contradict circumstances, 
rise superior to education and prejudice, and disappoint the 
expectations of friends and foes. 

It was so with the Apostle Paul. Benjamitish blood, 



104 THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

Jewish nationality, Phariseeic prejudice, instruction under 
Gamaliel and inborn predilections, instead of rendering him 
narrow, exclusive, commercial, political, formal, produced a 
broad -guaged, universal, cultivated, warm-hearted and de- 
voted disciple of the lowly Nazarene. The reason was that 
another force, hitherto unrecognized, a divine force, that 
which is in Christianity broke in upon the circumstances 
and sanctified them all. 

Think of a Jew, with all the native prejudices of his 
race: a scholarly Hebrew from Tarsus disputing against the 
first Christian converts at Jerusalem ;a Benjamite keeping the 
clothes of those who stoned the first martyr; a thoroughly 
educated Phariseeic lawyer on the royal road to eminence, 
" breathing out threatenings and slaughter," legally, con- 
scientiously indignant against the followers of Christ and 
their doctrines; think of such an one becoming a Christian; 
of all possibilities such an idea seems most improba- 
ble; but such a change actually took place under the trans- 
forming power of the Gospel. 

Nor was Saul's conversion superficial, a mere temporary 
expedient, it was deep, it was thorough, it was absolute. 
Fallen from his prosessional loftiness, contemptuously 
treated by those who admired him most; persecuted by his 
own countrymen, poor, mingling with the indigent and 
the lowly in consequence of this new following; yet he 
proclaimed doctrines that he had opposed, adhered to the 
Nazarene whom once he had despised, and declared that he 
was u not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the 
power of God unto salvation " 

What was the peculiar phase of the Gospel force that 
so captivated, charmed and transformed that thoughtful, 
scholarly citizen of Tarsus? Some are won by one phase 
of its power, and some by another. Clement, of Rome, 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 105 

was attracted by the Christian patience, sublime heroism 
and unfaltering faith of an elect lady who. in the great 
coliseum before twenty thousand spectators, submitted to 
be devoured by a lion rather than forego her love for Christ. 
Paul became a Christian through the power and glory of 
the Christly voice and presence. Whether presented in the 
person of its founder or in the character that it creates, the 
Gospel wins the admiration and devotion of men. Look- 
ing at this Gospel let us consider some features of which 
we are not ashamed. 

i. we are not ashamed of the origin of the gospel. 

1. It is objected that it had an obscure origin, in 
Bethlehem of Judea, in a stable, or perhaps a cavern, 
among a family of troglodytes or cave dwellers, that it 
grew in the rude atmosphere of Galilee, among a turbulent 
and rebellious people, and was fostered in Nazareth, an ob- 
scure village, among the barren hills that surround the 
place, and it was supposed that no good thing could come 
out of Nazareth. 

It is extreme narrowness that rejects a man or an idea 
because of surrounding poverty and obscurity. Then the 
steam engine must be rejected because Watt, its inventor, 
was a native of Greenock, which at the time of his birth 
was nothing but a fisher s hamlet. For the same reason 
electricity must be rejected, for it is not known exactly who 
discovered it. Mr. Lincoln, too, must be rejected because 
he grew up in the bickwools or on the river. Shakespear 
must be rejected also because his father would have been 
unknown were it not for the genius of his illustrious son. 

Yet we do not reject but admire the mind of a Shakes- 
pear, the honest statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, the 
wonderful genius that caught the lightning and chained it. 



106 THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

and the intelligence that discovered a mighty giant in the 
tea-kettle. We admire these men and these ideas despite 
the genius from whence they came. So it is nothing 
against the Gospel that it was first preached in Galilee, for 
prejudice to the contrary notwithstanding, at least one good 
thing has come out of Nazareth. 

2. It is objected that the Gospel originated in the 
brain of Jesus, a Jew, whose parents were exiles, whose 
father was a calo used-handed carpenter, who was himself a 
wanderer, homeless, penniless, pillowless, whom the sects 
despised, who, when only thirty-three years old, was exe- 
cuted as a malefactor. It is fashionable in certain circles 
to reject him, therefore his religion is rejected also. 

Still we are not ashamed of Jesus and his Gospel. We 
are not ashamed of any man who can rise above his ob- 
scurity, who will not be held down even by the fetters of 
poverty, whose character will shine despite all the attempts 
of calumny to reproach it. We are not ashamed of one 
whose posthumous influence, despite the brevity of lite, the 
unfavorableness of his circumstances, and the malicious 
endeavors of his enemies grows more wide-spread and 
glorious, although pontificial courts, royal governors and 
imperial arms attempt to crush the uttered truth and the 
pure spirit of the one who has departed. We glory in 
such an one. We believe that the thoughts of such an one 
are worth immortalizing. It- is so with Christ and with his 
Gospel. Obscurity, nor poverty, nor malice, nor crucifixion, 
nor nineteen hundred years of bitter opposition and perse- 
cution have been able to dim the light of the life of Jesus; 
that life is to-day a sun among the stars in the moral heavens. 
" His name is above every name. 11 We are therefore not 
ashamed of him or of his Gospel. 

3. But the Gospel has an origin, better than round 



f HE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 107 



hills, or quiet vales, or meditative man. It claims a heaven- 
ly origin. It was evolved in the council of the Most High. 
The hallowed influences of the Gospel of Christ have been 
breathed upon the world by the eternal spirit of God; 
bright eyed angels sung its welcome to earth. It is a divine 
truth given to the world by divine methods and through 
human agencies. It is a truth that bears testimony to its 
own divine character; wh itever may be said of the person 
of Jesus, and certanily much may be said about it, for the 
doctrine of the person of Christ is the central doctrine 
of Christianity, whatever may be said of this, the truth 
that he uttered is certainly from above. 

For instance, the Gospel implies humiliation and con- 
descension; this is the golden thought running through the 
whole plan of redemption; it is enforced by an example 
that is not common to earth, that could not have been 
born of the proud spirit of man. He who dares to stoop 
that he may become a stepping-stone for his brothers exal- 
tation has in him something of the genius of Heaven. 
This is the way that God works; thus the rain-drop falls 
from the sky, sinks through the soil, kisses the roots of the 
trees and grasses, and by its condescension paints the green 
of the summer leaf, and the beauty of the flower. In such 
a manner God works in the Gospel, its truth strikes down 
through men's burdens and underneath their sins, lifting 
up the soul into the summer realm ol spiritual life and 
lovliness; tberefore we are not ashamed. 

Again, the Gospel implies unselfishness. This, too, 
is supermundane; there is nothing more devouring to a hu- 
man soul than selfishness; it is most belittling in its effects, 
and there is nothing more expanding than that spirit which 
prefers another before itself. Those broad-guaged ideas 
that embrace all mankind in a common brotherhood, not 



108 THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

liypothetically only, but actually, are from above, not from 
beneath. It is human to be narrow, it is divine to be 
broad; there is in the Gospel an infinite breadth of benevo- 
lence and brotherliness ; therefore its truth is divine and we 
are not ashamed of it. 

Again, the Gospel is love. Love is omnipotent. As 
some one has, said " no cord or cable can draw so forcibly, 
or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread. 1 ' For 
love a mother would die for her child; for love a child has 
been known to cling to a drunken and brutal parent; for 
love of Edward I, Eleanor sucked poison from his wounded 
arm at the risk of her own life ; for the sake of love every 
burden is borne, every duty is done, every sacrifice is made. 
Love makes this dark world light; whoever loves is born of 
God. Love built this universe; love seeks the lost; love 
saves the fallen, and the love of God in Christ u endured the 
cross, despised the shame, 11 that it might save and redeem 
a sin-crushed earth. The Gospel is the glad tidings of eter- 
nal love; it is pregnant of it; it has most of love therefore 
most of God, hence we are not ashamed of it. It may have 
been uttered originally by the poor man of Nazareth; it 
may have been proclaimed first of all on a hillside in Gali- 
lee. No matter, its truth is divine, and we can not 
be ashamed. 

II. NOT ASHAMED OF THE HISTORY OF THE GOSPEL. 

1. It is objected that in its embodied form, that is, in 
the Church, the history of the Gospel has not always been 
what the followers of Christ might be proud of. The track 
of its history has been marked by the rise and fall of sects, 
the declarations of dogmas, the contentions of factions, the 
hate of bigots, and the cruelty of sanguinary persecu- 
tions. 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 109 

If honest, I must answer, yes, to this indictment. So 
far as society is concerned these things are true. Truth in 
this world is destined to fight its way against the false opin- 
ions of men, against organized forces of error, against the 
bitter antagonisms of foes, against the narrowness of big- 
ots, against selfishness, cruelty and pride, and against the 
ignorance and the imprudent zeal of its friends. Therefore 
not at once, but ultimately, the virtues of humanity, self- 
sacrifice and love are displayed. It is not supposable that 
the Church can leap into perfection in a day. It is not- 
possible that a heaven-given Gospel can be comprehended 
in a generation. The strange thing is not that the Church 
has been defective and deficient, but considering "the pit 
from which it has been digged, 11 it is wonderful that it has 
been pure and prudent as it has. 

2. Some have predicted and announced the failure of 
the Church, of Protestantism, of Christianity, of the Gospel; 
but they have mistaken the decay of sects, which cannot be 
denied, for the decline of truth. Personally, though cher- 
ishing a deep love for the Church, especially for the Church 
of my choice, yet historically speaking, I care as much for 
the sects that have been, yea for the sects that now are, as 
I do for shucks; 'they do, indeed, protect the seeds of truth 
for a little while; nor could the world have done without 
them; but, by and by, according to a divine and natural 
law, the ripened germs must fall out of the pods that 
environ them and seek new opportunities for development. 
We say then, let the sect go; it is the truth we want, not 
the pod; the decay of sects cannot affect the truth of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

3. It has been objected that the world has been con- 
tinually growing worse under the regime of Christianity. 
If this is true the world is without hope, for if the Gospel 



110 THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

— and by the Gospel we mean the ethical teachings of 
Christ — cannot make the world better, nothing can. It 
condemns murder and the hateful thought that precedes it; 
it does not permit one man even to call another a fool; it 
requires that I shall be correct myself before I criticise an- 
other; it demands meekness, mercy, forgiveness; it insists 
that a good man will love his fellow man whether he is 
loved in return or not; it condemns alike the adulterous 
act and the lustful look; it forbids divorce except for one 
cause, and pronounces re-marriage to be adultery; it de- 
mands alms, but not for the sake of the notoriety; in brief, 
Christ sums up his ethical instruction in regard to the duty 
that one man owes to another, in the immortal words of the 
golden rule, "whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them." Nor are these principles cold 
moral propositions merely, but they are quickened by the 
declaration that there is a Grod that sees all, and knows all, 
who holds every human soul responsible, and waits to re- 
ward the righteous and to punish the wicked. If such 
sacred sentiments and divine sanctions as these have, in 
two thousand years, made the world worse, then the world 
will never be any better. 

4. But the statement is counter to all history. The 
Church, with its Christian ethics, has moved a little in ad- 
vance of the gradual unfoldment of virtue. The character, 
the spiritual life of mankind has since Christ developed in 
periods. In the first period of the Christian era the grace of 
moral steadfastness was strengthened ; in another period the 
grace of tolerance became prevalent. Eventually the pe- 
riod that will witness the complete emancipation of the 
human mind shall have brokenlhi^upon the world; then, 
perhaps, the grace of universal tefve will become pre-emi- 
nent, and lastly, the period of sublime confidence and as- 
surance, that which will demonstrate that death does not 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. Ill 

destroy, will shine upon the mind like mid-day upon dark- 
ness. Thus we are not ashamed of the Gospel, for the world 
has grown better under its regime. 

5. Nor need we be ashamed of the last hundred years 
of the Gospel. It is strange that the century which has 
been most abundant in predictions about the extinction of 
the Christian religion should be most marked and vigorous 
in its religious progressiveness. The eighteenth century 
closed with a popular form of unbelief that was open, 
blatant and blasphemous in the extreme. Even good men 
feared that Christianity was sinking out of sight. But the 
nineteenth century was ushered in with a glorious revival 
that swept over this country, quickening the spirituality of 
the Churches, and continuing for upwards of twenty-five 
years. The second quarter of the nineteenth century was 
made peculiar all over the civilized world by the prominence 
of a subtle rationalism which extolled Christianity in the 
letter, but endeavored with destructive criticism to stab it 
to the very soul. Once more the world looked for the Gos- 
pel to lerish, but it disappointed every infidel expectation 
and appeared more active and aggressive than ever. While 
the knife was piercing to the very heart, Sunday schools 
started into existence, temperance organizations moved into 
line, Bible societies began to give the Word of Life to the 
nations, and the great modern missionary movement com- 
menced pushing forward to the moral conquest of the world. 
Thus, while it was confidently and repeatedly declared that 
Christianity was declining, it was in truth expanding and 
sweetly working its way into the hearts of men. Indeed, 
the Gospel has gained as much in the last eighty years as it 
did gain in the eighteen hundred years that preceded. Con- 
sidering therefore the history of the Gospel, a Christian has 
no need to "hide a blushing face. " It has made for itself 
a glorious history, we are not ashamed. 



11"! THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

III. NOT ASHAMED OF THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE 
GOSPEL, " FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION," 
TO EVERY ONE THAT BELIEVETH. 

1. Though no one has ever seen power, and no one 
knows what it is essentially, yet. having seen its effects, all 
mankind, from the child to the sage, desire to come into 
possession of that something, which is called power. The 
very infant is made angry if he cannot become a law unto 
himself. The savage seeks that power by which he can 
command the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. 
The husbandman wants power to subdue the earth. The 
geologist is ambitious to master the mysteries of the rocks; 
the electrician to catch and to use the forces of the ele- 
ments, and the astronomer to decipher the hieroglyphics of 
the stars. 

What is that that lifts a majestic oak out of a little 
acorn cup? What is it tha : : keeps the ocean within bounds 
and rolls up its eternal flood? What is it that on wing of 
flame rushes through the H j avens, piercing the bosom of 
the storm and smiting whatever it touches? What is it 
that holds suns in their places and keeps the worlds in their 
orbits? It is power, it is God. for power is of God and God 
is power. 

There is a power marvelous as that which appears in 
nature. What is that which has put the idea of right and 
wrong into human hearts? What is it that strikes convic- 
tion into the conscience? What is that that causes truth 
to win an ever widening way in the world? What is that 
in the Gospel tha c caused it to sweep onward to destiny, 
though confronted by the most subtle unbelief? What 
was it that impelled that same Gospel though a false church 
stood square in its way? What brought it forth from 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 113 

German philosophy unscathed, and French infidelity unin- 
jured? What was it in Christianity that caused it to suc- 
cessfully withstand the learned unbelief of England and to 
go on in its work of love despite the ravings of its ene- 
mies? What was it in the Gospel whicli, though op- 
posed by science and speculation, and persecution, caused it 
to stand like some grand old cathedral after the storm has 
played among its towers? It was power, ''the power of 
God," for all power is of God, all moral as well as material 
power. Thus the apostle declares that the Gospel is power. 
Not a power, but the power, "the power of God." 

Whatever is capable of producing an effect is power. 
The Gospel has produced effect, therefore it is power. The 
effects of a the Gospel are evident and numerous. One can 
see them in the beaming countenance of Stephen, in the 
sublime character of Paul, in the fancies that live on the 
canvas of a Raphael, an Angelo, a Correggio and a Rem- 
brandt, in those glorious harmonies that broke from the lips 
of a Handel, a Mozart, a Haydn, and a Beethoven. One 
can see the effects of the Gospel in the world's grandest 
specimens of architecture, in the prof oundest literature, in 
the science of a Humboldt, a Herschel and a Newton, in 
the philosophy of a Bacon, a Hamilton and a McCosh, and 
in all the march of modern civilization. One can see the 
effects of the Gospel in the spirit of law, in the science 
of government, and in the tendencies of modern diplo- 
macy. The Gospel too has impressed the wild man with 
the gentleness of a child, it has dashed from the lips of 
the cannibal the bowl of human blood, it has snatched the 
immolated victim from the sacrificial altar, it has converted 
spears and tomahawks into implements of husbandry, it 
has transformed indolence into industry, it lifted Madagas- 
car out of darkness into light, it redeemed India from idol- 
atry and China from superstition, it was preached by 



114 THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

Moody and sung by Sankey among the professors and stu- 
dents of Oxford and Cambridge, and it caused their pulses 
to beat with new and spiritual vigor. The Gospel there- 
fore is a power in itself, for that which is capable of pro- 
ducing such remarkable results must be a power. If then, 
the Gospel is power the world need not be ashamed of it, 
"for power belongetli unto God " and whatever is endowed 
with power must be one of his creatures. 

2. All power is for some purpose; that of an argu- 
ment is intended for conviction ; that of imagination is to 
create beautiful ideals ;t hat of nitro-glycerine is for destruc- 
tion; that of steam is for railroads, machinery and manu- 
facturing- So the Gospel is power, a power in itself. Em- 
ployed it is an irresistible force, sweeping everything before 
it. But if a power it is fcr a particular purpose; what is 
that purpose? Let the apostle answer. He declares that 
the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. This, then, 
is the divine intent in the Gospel, for this special purpose 
God has put his power into the glorious truth of redemp- 
tion. 

I have mentioned some of the accidental benefits of 
the Gospel. Let us not confound these, important as they 
are, with the ultimate design. It is not art, it is not science 
it is not civilization, it is not knowledge, it is not moral 
force, but transcending all these it is salvation. By salva- 
tion we mean deliverance, preservation from peril or calam- 
ity. The Greek word is sotheria, which means safety. The 
Gospel then is the power of God unto human deliverance, 
unto absolute safety. Not from Egyptian but spiritual 
bondage; not by a human but a divine deliverer; not from 
the waves of the sea but from that just " indignation and 
wrath" which threatens to overwhelm "every soul of man 
that doeth evil;' 1 not from the flames of a burning dwelling 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 115 

but from the quenchless fires of a burning conscience; not 
from bodily disease alone but from the moral leprosy of 
a corrupt and fallen nature; not from the perils of a mili- 
tary invasion but from the crushing consequences of a 
broken law. The Gospel therefore comes to us, not with 
the sculptor's chisel or the poet's song; not with the scien- 
tist's experiment or the pedagogue's blackboard and dia- 
gram; it comes not with a life-boat or a patent fire escape; 
not with the materia medica or a scalpel; not with cannon 
or diplomacy, but it comes with the cross, the symbol of 
eternal love, infinite condescension and magnetic power; it 
comes to restore harmony to a world that had been made 
discordant by sin; it comes to harmonize that world with 
law divine ; it comes to lift sinful souls from the horrible pit 
into which they had sunk, up to the glorious possibilities 
and privileges of children of God. In brief it comes to 
proclaim universal pardon of the offenses of all the subjects 
of the King of Kings, and regeneration and redemption, on 
condition of repentance and acceptance by faith of the soul- 
healing remedy of the atonement which has been provided 
in Jesus Christ. Therefore the lt Son of God," after his con- 
descension, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and when 
about to ascend to the right h'md of the majesty on high, 
said "all power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth," 
and so it happens that the Gospel that he left us, that is the 
method by which the soul may secure unto itself eternal 
life and safety, is "the power of God unto salvation." 

Such being the nature and the purpose of the glorious 
Gospel of the Son of God, why should we be ashamed of 
it ? What is there in the Gospel to be ashamed of ? It is 
not the foe of free thought, for it enjoins " prove all 
things;" it is not a monster of intolerance, for it says "him 
that is weak in the faith receive ye;" it is not inspired with 
a mercenary intent for it recommends " love thy neighbor 



116 TRE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 

as thyself ;" it cannot be a fabric of fables for the grandest, 
the most substantial institutions of earth are built upon it; 
it is not a malicious dispenser of immorality for it advises 
"shun the very appearance of evil;" it does not impose on 
humanity heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, for "its yoke 
is easy and its burden is light. 11 Why then is the world 
ashamed of it? 

The Gospel does not declare that hope dies with us; it 
does not teach that the grave is the end of all; it does not 
tell you that your vanished loved ones have sunk in a sea of 
death never to rise again; it does not bid you go to yonder 
city of marble monuments and hillocks green and weep, 
because in that silent mausoleum all the brightness of life 
went out forever; it does not say toil on, toil lovingly, sac- 
rifice each day, each succeeding year, until life's thread is 
run out, and then die, die to live no more. No ! No ! It 
teaches that "your labor is not in vain, 11 your "works shall 
follow 1 ' you even into the evermore; your soul shall not die; 
even your body shall triumph over the grave; it tells of 
happy meetings beyond the flood; of a nightless land where 
there shall be "no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor 
pain; it tells of jasper, and emerald, and gold, and rivers of 
life, and thrones, and kingdoms, and crowns, and songs, and 
shoutings, and hallelujahs, when all the former things shall 
have passed away. Why then be ashamed of it ? 

Nor is the Gospel a provision of redemption for a se- 
lect and chosen few; it comes freighted with a power of 
salvation for all the world of love-needy humanity. Sin, 
the one impediment, it proposes to remove; it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that belie veth; to the 
Jew first, that is to the Deist, and not to the Jew or the 
Deist only, but also to the Gentile, that is the Pagan, and 
not to the Jew and Gentile, the Deist and the Pagan only, 
but to all who believe it, that is all who are willing to live 
by its moral rule. 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 117 

Men may talk about the mistakes of Moses, or the 
mistakes of Usher; they may talk about things in the Old 
Testament that they do not understand; they may boast of 
apes being their patriarchal grandfathers, and polliwogs as 
being their royal ancestors; men may talk about theology or 
science, or about the latest born of the philosophies ; but as 
for me, considering the origin of the Gospel, considering its 
history, considering its power and purpose, and what it has 
done for human souls, for one I am not ashamed of the 
Gospel of Christ. So long as it can auimate a human heart 
with glorious hope it shall be my consolation, and adopt- 
ing the language of the psalmist I would say, " if I forget 
thee, let my right hand forget its cunning, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer thee not above 
my chief joy." 

But on the other hand, one might well be ashamed of 
infidelity; it has changed its face at least fifty times during 
the last eighteen hundred years; and to-day it goes forth, 
not with love beaming in its eye, not with charity on its 
lips, not with benevolence on its palm, but it is a monster 
going forth to destroy. We are ashamed of that which 
has never thrown one flash of light on human ignorance; 
never comforted one sorrowing soul; never healed one broken 
heart; never wiped away one falling tear. We are ashamed 
of that which is nothing but a negation, that which means 
no faith, no Church, no Bible, no Christ, no future, no God, 
no responsibility, nothing but blackness, darkness and des- 
pair. We are ashamed of infidelity, but not of the Gospel 
which is the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth. And, dear friend, if you would not be ashamed 
of yourself; if you would crown yourself with a glory of 
manhood, character and destiny, abandon your infidelity and 
become a Christian, not in creed merely, not in profession 
only, but in life and in work. 



118 



THE IRREPROACHABLE GOSPEL. 



If, then, there is no reason why we should be ashamed 
of the Gospel let us cease to oppose it; and as there is every 
reason why deathless responsible beings should glory in it, 
let us heartily accept its saving truth, let us make 
its precepts the rule of our lives, and its eternal 
hope the joy and confidence of our souls. We need not 
wait, every eternal interest prompts us to make the avowal 
now. We need not hesitate for all things are ready. Who- 
soever will may come and take of the water ot life freely. 
Should all the ends of the earth look by faith unto the Son 
oP God, they might be saved this moment. Sufficient au- 
thority and infinite power are in his hand. ,k He is able 
to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him." 



h^-fr 




THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 



Bat ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, 

praying in the Holy Ghost. 
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of 

our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.— Jnde 20, 21. 

The present religious outlook is, to many excellent 
people, anything but encouraging. Influenced by a preva- 
lent skepticism, they are willing to admit that, after all, the 
Gospel may be a failure. So, indeed, it may be; it is not 
impossible that the world may reject it, although its truth 
may remain unchanged, its inspiration unaffected. 

A conflict of ideas is expected; every moral assertion 
and question, every school and sect give evidence to the fact 
that the battle has been raging, and that it cannot cease 
uutil truth is absolutely triumphant. Christianity com- 
menced in a conflict. The epistle of Jude, a short epistle 
of one chapter, with only twenty-five verses, complains of 
antichrist in the Church, and is occupied in describing false 
teachers and seducers, and in dictating the method of 
evading their influence and avoiding their errors. If, then, 
the children are being tried in the crucible of criticism, 



120 THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

they are but acquiring the experiences of their fathers; nor 
should they seek to shun the ordeal, for in the end, the 
world will have a stronger faith and a sturdier religion, be- 
cause Christianity has beeu compelled to fight its way along 
the line of the world's opposing opinions. We expect, 
therefore, the clash of arms. Though Christianity may 
not to-day be' doomed to do battle with the wild beasts of 
the amphitheater, it is destined to confront the lions of the 
forum. 

In an age when a variety of religious opinions, and 
opinions that are not remarkably religious, are in conflict, 
and it is supposed that Christianity is being pushed to the 
wall in the battle, it is well to ask what is Christianity? 
And having assured ourselves as to what it really is, then to 
inquire is that system of religious truths that is known as 
Christianity defeated, or is it triumphant in the fight? 

There can be no doubt that much that is supposed by 
some people to be the Gospel, at least essential to it, and 
against which a score of knightly lances are aimed, is noth- 
ing more than some vain c mceit of an uninspired brain, a 
rude relic of a barbarous age, or the fungus growth of some 
deteriorated theology. We must not imagine when these 
fall that the citadel of the Gospel has fallen. 

There has been for inst ince, of late, considerable fight- 
nig over ritualistic forms and ceremonies; but so little has 
ritualism to do with the genius of the Gospel that, whether 
ritualism were unhorsed, or rode the field a victorious cava- 
lier, it would make no difference with the essential truth of 
Christianity. 

Though the present age should Avitness the annihila- 
tion of Calvinism, Arminianism, Methodism, Baptism and 
every other ism, it would not necessarilly follow that 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 121 

Christianity had perished, but the Gospel might shine with 
brighter radiance because all the overshadowing- isms had 
faded away. 

To the same effect are the recent utterances of a cer- 
tain popular lecturer, who boldly and poetically says that 
"advancement depends on intelligence; whoever quits grow- 
ing is orthodox; heresy is what grows, orthodoxy rots," and 
that " there is nothing in theology worth speaking of but 
the devil." If that lecturer chooses he may believe in the 
"eternal divorce of the Church and the State; 11 or in the 
good effects of a " baptism of soap. 1 ' It may be true as he 
said that some Christians have been slaveholders; they may 
have been guilty of falsely interpreting Scripture; they 
may have deduced strange and even dangerous opinions 
from the Bible; they may have been poor logicians; they 
ma}^ have persecuted those who differed from them, and the 
lecturer himself may make fortunes out of the unbelief of 
multitudes, and be greeted everywhere with loud cheers and 
enthusiastic applause; but, having made all his points and 
finished all his arguments, what does it amount to as an 
attack on Christianity? It happens simply that the moun- 
tain has travailed in birth and brought forth nothing but 
a mouse. The great central truths of the Gospel still 
stand unshaken and untouched. 

What then is ^Christianity ? The text suggests its 
distinguishments. It wondrously lifts the Gospel into the 
clear light of a self -witnessing character; led by its thought 
I should speak of the Gospel as distinguished by the purity 
and potency of its doctrine, by the spirit and inspiration 
of its worship, by the sweep and sublimity of its devotion, 
and by the ground and scope of its assurance. This would 
make too vast a field for us to traverse in one discourse; 
we therefore narrow our inquiries down to the doctrinal 



122 THE PILLAKS OF OUK FAITH. 

peculiarities of Christianity. Do you ask what are its doc- 
trines? The answer certainly must be, those forms of re- 
ligious truths which were taught by Christ and his apostles. 
Let us then examine some of the salient points of the Gos- 
pel, so that we may learn whether or not the infidel icono- 
clasts of to-day are hurling their lances at a man of straw 
or a mountain of adamant. What then are the doctrinal 
pillars of our faith ? 

I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE UNITY OF GOD. 

The thought of God lies latently in every human soul 
and waits the working of those forces that can quicken it 
into evidence; nence the philosophy of the ages has gen or- 
ally steered clear of an absolute denial of God. Indeed the 
denial of the divine existence is not an original suggestion. 
Man must cut loose from his inborn conviction before he 
can lay the foundation for even a plausible negation, con- 
sequently the scarcest class of people and the most unpop- 
ular is the atheistic, that class that boldly declares there is 
no God. 

Prone to evil, evil prevalent in the world and potent in 
the human heart, men, while they could not root out from 
their minds the thought of God, "changed the glory of the 
incorruptible into an image made like to corruptible man, 
and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things; 11 
they revelled in poetry and deified it; they gave free vent to 
passion and worshipped it; they sought pleasure and drank 
wine, and declared that Bacchus should represent the 
voluptuousness of their natures; they were enamored of 
beauty and enthroned it as a divinity; they exalted all kinds 
of imaginary gods and goddesses over fields and floods and 
stars; they decreed that Jupiter should be god of the clouds, 
Neptune of the sea and Pluto of the dark domain of 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 123 

death. Thus they "changed the truth of God into a lie, 
and worshipped and served the creature more than the 
Creator." 

When Christ came the world was a vast augean stable. 
Idolatry had made it so. Christianity undertook the hercu- 
lean task of cleaning it out. In the midst of the polythe- 
ism of the nations Christ lifted up his voice and said, "Hear, 
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord:" the same had been 
uttered by the law of Moses. The psalmist too had declared 
"thou art God alone." The great apostle also laconically 
announced "God is one." and again "there is one God and 
Father of all." and also "there is none other God but one.'" 
In fact, Israel was the only nation of the apostolic age. un- 
less the Druids of Britain were an exception, that was not 
polytheistic. Kings, tribes, cities families, individuals, chose 
some deity from the pantheon and worshipped it. Like 
Egypt, Babylon. Assyria. Greece and all the nations that 
preceded, Rome had its chosen divinities. At one time 
thirty thousand different gods were enthroned in the city 
of the Caesars. So with all the barbarous people of north- 
ern Europe, and so it was with all the nations of the 
Orient. 

When Christ and his apostles went about declaring in 
the name of the new religion that "the Lord our God is one 
Lord," the idols and divinities of earth were made to tremble 
in their sanctuaries. It meant that Vulcan, Pan. Xeptmie 
and Jupiter. Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, Woden. 
Thor and Tiue should be relegated to the mythical region 
whence they had come. It meant that polytheism should 
disappear, and with it should vanish the accumulated filthi- 
ness of centuries : and vanish it did. The spreading light 
of Christianity scattered the darkness and purified and 



124 THE FILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

sweetened the earth. So that there can be no question 
about it, the world is a good deal cleaner to-day than it was 
two thousand years ago. 

Does the infidelity of to-day attack this doctrine of the 
unity of God? Does it direct its guns toward this tower of 
strength in Christianity? Then, what part of the army 
of unbelief is marching directly against this citadel? Not 
agnosticism, it is unconcerned whether there is a God or 
not; not rationalism, it simply asserts that reason shall be 
pure and its syllogisms solid; not spiritualism, for it is only 
an etherializecl form of deism; not materialism, at least in- 
tentionally, for it asserts the eternity of matter, and is 
willing to accept the idea that possibly God may be behind 
it. Atheism alone attacks this doctrine, but it has only a 
small following, for what man of thought will fellowship 
a class of idiots who profess to know what they cannot 
know anything about? How can any man know that there 
is no God? Evidently, therefore, when men professedly 
antagonize Christianity they do not attack this pillar of its 
truth. They may war against some unreasonable notion of 
deity, but not so much as one missile have they to fling at 
this rock, this abstract idea of the unity of God. The pig- 
mies might as well try to beat down Gibraltar with pellets 
of mud. 

This 'doctrine is the sweetest, the most comforting, the 
most assuring, the most reasonable doctrine that is possible 
to the minds of men. It is a thought that the world can- 
not destroy if it would. What the world would be without 
God, no language can tell, and what is the power of that 
thought upon the conduct of humanity no arithmetic can 
compute. It is a sublime conception. Intelligence cannot 
reach beyond it. The divine ideal may be inborn, but the 
fulness of the thought must have been revealed. That 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 125 

there is one God, supreme above all, a necessary being, ab- 
solute in his existence, one infinitely wise, good and just, 
the omnipotent, the immutable, the eternal one, the Father 
of all, cannot be discoverable by reason alone, but once 
having been revealed, the mind grasps the thought and 
keeps it, and all opposing fancies vanish away like morning 
mists before advancing light. But this is one of the pillars 
of our faith, a fundamental doctrine; the first of all the 
commandments is '"the Lord our God is one Lord." Let 
not the enemy imagine that Christianity has fallen so long 
as this pillar stands. 

II. THE SECOND PILLAR OF OUR FAITH IS THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE DIVIDE PROVIDENCE. 

Providence is God exercising his wisdom and power in 
the government of this world and this universe, for those 
particular purposes that he regards as necessary to be ac- 
complished. As a doctrine, it is Christ's affirmation of the 
goodness of creation, and his contradiction of that preva- 
lent, hurtful fancy, the essential evilness of nature. The 
doctrine of providence is the broadest, the fullest, the most 
comprehensive doctrine of Christianity. It signifies that 
God is good, all his works are good, all his laws are good, 
and that he is at work always and everywhere for the good 
of his children. 

* Scripture is full of the idea that creation is good; 
it is the first doctrine on record therein; it teache> 
that God created light and called it good; he saw that the 
earth was good: he pronounced the earth's products to be 
good; he set the stars in their places and they were good; 
the things that have life that came forth of the waters were 
also good; and finally, having made man out of the dust 
of the earth, "God saw everything that he had made and 
behold it was very good." 



126 THE PILLARS OF OUK FAITH. 

It is strange that this self-evident truth should have 
been compelled to fight its way against an opposite doctrine, 
the doctrine of the essential evilness of matter, a doctrine 
which became wide-spread, almost general, asserting itself 
at the very altars of the Church, and to some extent flour- 
ishing to the present day. Blind to every evidence of prov- 
idence, it taught that all matter from mountain to molecule 
is haunted with a living principle of evil, that man's con- 
tact with matter is his greatest misfortune, that for his 
sin he should torture his body, and that the shortest way 
out of sin is the shortest way out of the flesh. 

This idea explains the anchoretic tendencies of the 
Hindoo and the disgusting mendicacy of the Fakir; it af- 
fords a reason tor the aceticism of the Buddhist, and the 
abstemiousness of the Pharisee; it gives significance to celi- 
bacy, and makes evident the underlying meaning of monas* 
ticism; in brief, it blocks the wheels of progress and smites 
the world with moral death. But more, in a sense it de- 
throned the Supreme Being, at least robbed him of all his 
material domain, for if matter is evil, how can a pure and 
holy God include matter in his government? The ante- 
Christian world therefore declared when it beheld the des- 
tructive sweep of the tornado, the scathing flash of the 
lightning,and feltthe bewildering reel of the earthquake.that 
there must be a malignant God as well as a good one, that 
the good reigns in the realm of soul and the bad in the 
realm of sense, and that a fierce and uncertain conflict is 
perpetually proceeding between them. But such ideas 
could not obtain did the world truly believe in a divine 
providence. 

Christ came and proclaimed that providence; he showed 

that a spiritual power shapes and controls the whole mate- 
rial mass; that the two kingdoms of sense and spirit are 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 127 

really one and in harmony; that over both one God reigns 
supreme; that under the perfect action of divine law even 
the harsher aspects of nature are fraught with benedictions 
for humanity, or that as the apostle said, "all things work 
together for good to them that love God." 

When Christ taught that matter is impressible and 
controllable by a superior mind, he laid down the foundation 
thought upon which the wondrous temple of modern 
science has been built; that belief, now so popular and in- 
spiring that, ultimately intelligence shall subdue force, for 
if one mind is all-controlling, other minds may attain some- 
time to such power and dignity also. 

This doctrine of providence, or that the universe is the 
Lord's, was the very doctrine that the world most needed. 
Such a thought had long been a disideratum in the human 
mind. When Philip said u show us the Father and it suf- 
ficeth us," he gave utterance to one of the deepest longings 
of the heart-nature of man. Humanity groaned to see and 
know that above nature and commanding it is God. Until 
such providence is manifest the soul is uncertain whether it 
is orphan or not. 

The Book of Nature, though it had been studied for 
four thousand years, gave no testimony to the fact that 
matter and God are one. Christ came and proclaimed a 
providence; he taught that yonder vast out-lying universe 
with all its beauty and variety is the creature of God, that it 
is his, its laws and forces and elements are all his, that he 
clothes the grass of the field, he adorns the lily, he feeds 
the fowls of the air, all are his, his to command, his to pro- 
mote his glory, his to work out the greatest good of his 
children. This thought too involves faith, reasonable faith; 
who can hesitate to trust infinite wisdom and omnipotence 
to manage all the affairs of this universe, great and small ? 



128 THE PILLARS OF OL'R FAITH. 

As far as that hurtful theory of the essential evilness of 
matter is concerned, Christ, by the sweet sociability of his 
example, by the simple beauty in which lie spoke of beasts 
and birds and flowers, by the tact with which he wove into 
his matchless discourse, fields and vineyards and all the sug- 
gestive symbolisms of nature, most effectually contradicted 
the doctrine. He not only said annoint thy head and wash 
thy face; not only did he strike away the mask from the 
disfigured face of hypocrisy; not only did he bless a mar- 
riage feast with his presence and sanctify the joyous wine 
by his miracle, but he promised that the earth should be 
the inheritance of the blessed meek, and under the influence 
of his spirit the great apostle could say ''every creature of 
God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with 
thanksgiving." 

But there are two divine ideals which, as they appear 
prominently in the holy faith of the Gospel, with a majesty 
incomparably sublime, rebuke this false philosophy that the 
material universe is inherently malignant, Those ideals are 
the Incarnation and the Resurrection. These teach the 
whole world of humanity that matter is good enough for 
infinite goodness, and that the glory of the Heavenly 
is not too good even for bodies like ours, bodies that have 
sprung up out of the dust. 

The significance of the Incarnation and the Resurrec- 
tion, in one word of Redemption, is not that God, on 
account of human apostacy, found himself in a 
difficult strait, and was compelled to call his omnipotence 
into requisition that he might work himself out; that infin- 
ite thought was not an after-thought; but Redemption is 
the expression of a great, all-pervading, all-penetrating and 
eternal law of providence, the crowning evidence that God, 
the universe and humanity are bound together in the bonds 
of a glorious and inseparable trinity; that God is u above 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 129 

all, through all, and in you all;" in short, that if you will 
only accept them u all things are yours, ye are Christ's and 
Christ is God's. 11 Down through universes, and laws, and 
atoms, the Father extends his arms to reach, embrace and 
lift up his fallen child, up above atoms, and laws, and uni- 
verses to the very bosom of his infinite love. 

Since Jesus Christ made proclamation of his great doc- 
trine of providence, crowned with the glory of Redemption 
the world has moved onward; this holy faith has built it up; 
when men began to see that matter is good, not bad, they 
looked into it, they employed its forces and its elements for 
their convenience, comfort and development. Society is 
enriched and home is made sweet according as the crude 
notion of the malignity of matter passes away. So it hap- 
pens that men on whose brows have shined the light of a 
Christian civilization do not shrink away from material 
things as if they were possessed of a devil, but making- 
stepping-stones of them they rise continually into a better 
life. Redemption, therefore, that is providence in its com- 
pleteness, is the force that touches the secret springs of 
man's loftiest ambitions, and leads him out into the field of 
his infinite opportunities. 

Thus we have examined the second pillar of our faith; 
having seen it standing forth in the amplitude and strength 
of its divine glory, may we not say, in the words of Marcus 
Antoninus, " what would it concern me to live in a world 
void of God, and without a providence?" This idea of an 
universal providence, which of course implies a particular, 
that is a divine influence thrown around every individual 
soul, the soft touches of the divine finger on the harp- 
strings of the human heart, is to man's moral sense, as self- 
evident as the light to his eye, or the law ot gravitation to 
his reason. Whatever, therefore, may be the variety of 



130 THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

human conjecture, or the conflicts of theological specula- 
tions, there can be no disposition in the heart of man to 
antagonize or repudiate this fundamental truth. Sweep it 
away and you have dethroned the Almighty, you have di- 
vested him of his glorious attributes, you have plucked law 
and harmony from the universe, you have destroyed your 
hope of eternal life, and you are left in utter helplessness 
and weakness while there is no strong hand reaching down 
into your "slough of despond" to lift you out. 

But this doctrine, unentangled and simple, is not to- 
day and never has been very furiously assailed ; the world 
generally accepts it; in so far therefore the world generally 
accepts Christianity, for providence is a fundamental truth 
of the Gospel. Mankind does not greatly enjoy antagoniz- 
ing a principle so apparent to moral sense, and so pregnant 
with high-born possibilities for the race. In their disputa- 
tions and desperation, men have struck off from this doc- 
trine this fanciful appendage and that; one generation 
threw about this pillar of faith a net-work which was torn 

away by another; this theologian endeavored to stick on a 
lily, and that one tried to adorn it with a pomegranate, but 
when all the pomegranates, and the lilies, and reticulations 
of human ingenuity have been swept away with the besom 
of destruction, this pillar of our faith, just as Jesus dis- 
played it, still stands, with its base on the earth and its 
capital in the clouds of the eternal habitation, secure as the 
throne of God ; around it the world's populations gather, and 
in the integrity of then heart-natures confess "the Lord 
reigneth, he preserveth the souls of his saints, light is given 
or the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart." 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 131 

III. THE THIRD PILLAR OF OFR FAITH IS THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE REMISSION" OF SINS. 

The world, at the time of Christ, needed to have pointed 
out to it an effectual remedy for sin, which should harmon- 
ize with the highest dictate of reason, the moral methods of 
the universe and the righteousness of God. That need was 
wide-spread as humanity, for wherever man breathed the 
breath of life there was sin, and wherever sin appeared there 
was the demand more or less earnest for the sovereign 
cure. 

Whatever its cause, sin is the most appalling fact in 
the universe. Sin lurked in the subtle question of the first 
deceiver, in the credulous curiosity of the first woman, in 
the craven cowardice of the first man, and in the very devo- 
tions of the first brother. Scarcely had fifteen centuries of 
the world's history passed away when sin merited and re- 
ceived a rebuke, severe, sweeping and overwhelming. The 
Egyptians were sensible o£ sin when they paid large reven- 
ues to numerous colleges of priests. Sin was the great 
plague of the Hebrews during their pilgrimage of forty 
years in the wilderness. Sin confronted them in all the 
peoples by whose territorial borders they passed. Sin was 
the rock that struck and broke into pieces the Babylonian 
empire, and sin is everywhere doing its work of destruction 
to-day. 

But what is sin? And what is salvation? A variety 
of answers might be given. Sin is perversity of choice, a 
force in man that deflects him from the true course, a 
wrong aim by which he misses the mark of destiny, a bias 
within that twists, wrenches and deforms man's moral 
nature, and brings spiritual rain on his soul. But Paul said 
"sin is transgression of the law; 11 in accordance with this 



132 THE PILLAKS OF OUR FAITH. 

definition I should say that sin is an attempt to break the 
links by which God, the universe and humanity are bound 
dn one sweet and blessed trinity. 

Punishment of sin in its primary sense is the natural 
consequence of such an attempt. In other words, it is that 
"tribulation and anguish" which must come on every soul of 
man that seeks to disengage itself from the all-encompass- 
ing arms of divine law and love. 

Repentance is the act by which a prodigal son returns 
to tho embrace of his Heavenly Father. 

Prayer is the soul in struggle to climb up into the 
higher possibilities of being. 

Faith is the power that takes hold of the approved 
method, and Salvation is the grace of divine love, made 
manifest in Christ Jesus and applied to the soul's hurt for 
its eternal healing. 

Christ came to proclaim the law and pronounce the 
remedy; it was unique; except in foreshadowing ceremonies 
the world had never dreamed of such a method before. A 
remedy for sin had been sought in altars, shrines, tithes, 
temples, sacrifices, scourges. Men hail consulted priests, 
oracles, philosophers, physicians; they had performed pen- 
ance, lavished wealth, accomplished good works and sought 
cleansing from sin in numerous ablutions and baptisms; hut 
these could only blunt the edge of conscience, they could 
not cover, lift, take away or blot out guilt. 

Christ, perceiving that men " loved darkness rather 
than light, because their deeds were evil,' 1 that "all like 
sheep had gone astray, 11 or, as I have expressed myself, that 
they were breaking away from the embraces and providences 
of God, and thus doing violence to nature and to destiny 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 133 

declared that, in order to reinstatement and reunion with 
the Father, a radical work must first be done; the affections 
and desires must be bent backward; the nature that had 
been wrenched and warped by sin must be made straight 
again; the wrong bias taken out; the roots of bitterness ex- 
tracted, and the soul placed in its true position; in short, 
there must be a new moral birth into which Christ himself 
is the door, the way, the truth. Therefore Christ gave 
utterance to a self-evident truth in the great scheme of di- 
vine providence when he said u God sent not his Son into 
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through 
him might be saved." And he spoke philosophically when 
he said " He that believeth on (that is liveth by) the Son 
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not (or liveth 
not by) the Son shall not see life." 

Thus there is a remedy for sin, it is in grace. God has 
made provision for such an emergency in his eternal law 
and counsel. If there is an all-superintending providence 
there must be such a remedy. Salvation from sin must be 
a potent law in God's universe, invariable as any other law. 
As relief from hunger is a potency in the law of vegetation, 
or as life is a potency in the co-operating methods of the 
material universe, so forgiveness, remission of sin and sal- 
vation from its guilt and consequences is a potency in the 
perfect law of divine love. The love of God could not have 
been perfect had it been unable to make all just and neces- 
sary provision for every poor fallen soul that stands in need 
of redeeming power. Admitting then that there is a God, 
that he rules in this universe, that he has a Father's com- 
passion for all his children, we should be smitten with as- 
tonishment if there were nowhere to be found a way out of 
our moral undoing. 

Christ is the expression and manifestation of that law 
and that power; he is the hand of omnipotence reached out 



134 THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

to an erratic world to lead it from hoplessness to hope, from 
sin to God. He taketh away the sin of the world. He is 
the sin -remitting power in Heaven and in earth. He is ahle 
to put back sin, just as health puts back disease, He can 
move u our sins from us as far as the East is from the 
West." " To him gave all the prophets witness that 
through his name all who believe on him shall receive re- 
mission of sins." 

Remission being a divine law, we find that its effects 
are the same everywhere, its operation is invariable, it is 
known by its fruits. Wherever a sinner finds the law and 
uses it, whether he recognizes the hand that offers it or the 
voice that commends it or not, it accomplishes the same 
work. The most brilliant, the mo^t benighted, the civilized 
and the barbarian are saved under the influence of that lawi 
not alone from a future hell that one might fear, not from 
a future Heave n that one might desire, but saved in the 
present time, saved from the sinful act, saved from the cor- 
rupting power of sin, saved from the guilt and stain of sin, 
saved to holiness, and love, and God. Saved, if like Saul of 
Tarsus, knowing the source from whence the salvation 
comes, and saved, though like some ignorant heathen, we 
have never heard of Christ, "for when the Gentiles, which 
have not the law, (written), do by nature the things con- 
tained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto 
themselves." So then, men cire not saved by believing in 
the person of Christ, but by living by the principles, and 
under the influence of the life of Christ. The law is the 
same therefore the wide -world over, and when in eternity 
the building of Redemption, fitly framed together, shall 
have grown into a holy temple in the Lord, all who have 
been redeemed, Jew and Gentile, bond and free, learned and 
unlearned will disco ver,though some of them may not know 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 135 

it now, that Jesus Christ is the foundation and the chief 
corner stone. 

This then is the doctrine, that God in his providence 
has provided a means by which his children, though fallen 
and sinful, need not be forever banished from him. By the 
side of this truth there may be a score of glosses and theo- 
logical fancies, glosses and fancies that thoughtful men 
must criticise and oppose but who would fight against this 
law of pardon ? Who is willing to declare that God in his 
fatherhood will not receive and redeem a poor, penitent 
soul, who out of the depths cries "Lord save or I perish?" 

Ever since the proclamation of this divine law of re- 
mission, humanity has been looking up, for sin degrades, 
but when sin has been cancelled, courage comes to the soul 
and hope to the heart. Let a man drop his sin, come into 
harmony with God and God's uuiverse, let him fee"l in his 
conscience the healing power ot divine love, and realiz e 
that he has thus come into that state where he is " heir of 
all things' 1 and he must grow; then he will walk and faint 
not, he will run and not be weary, he will mount as on 
wings of eagles. Let us then thank God for the possibility 
of pardon. 

IV. THE FOURTH PILLAR OF OUR FAITH IS THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD OF MAN". 

Christ taught this doctrine when he said " Love your 
enemies;" also when he associated with publicans and sin- 
ners; also in his remarks to the woman at Jacob's well; 
also in the parable of the Good Samaritan; but particularly 
when he declared u God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." And in the fullness 



136 THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

of time one of the apostles was delegated to make clear and 
unmistakable announcement of this great truth; nor did he 
timidly undertake his work, Emboldened with the spirit 
of his Master he declared, u of a truth, I perceive that God 
is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fear- 
eth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. 11 

This was an announcement world-wiue in its scope, 
and universal in its significance ; it contained not a grain of 
fatalism, election or bigotry; it recognized no outward con- 
dition or creed as a standard of measurement; the sole re- 
quirement for affiliation with Almighty God, to say nothing 
of affinity with man, is, according to this distinguishing 
doctrine of the Gospel, reverence and righteousness, in one 
word it is character. 

This idea, in the age in which it was uttered, was en- 
tirely new, it was revolutionizing, it was disloyalty to the 
sentiment that had been prevalent for centuries, it contra- 
dicted the custom of the Jew who refused even to recognize 
an unproselyted Gentile; it struck at the philosophy of 
Greece which taught that u an inferior race is born to be 
the slaves of the superior ; v it menaced the practice of a 
world-conquering empire, for that empire trampled under 
its feet everything that was not Roman; it was a shaft 
aimed at China, that stagnant nation which, for thousands 
of years sat isolated with walls of exclusiveness built solidly 
around her; it was a golden apple, thrown into the midst 
of India, that empire of caste and social petrifactions; yes, 
and that doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man is 
falling to-day with tremendous force on the sectarian nar- 
rowness and the pious bigotry of all classes of exclusive 
Christians who stand in the way of the moral progress of 
the world. 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 137 

That divine doctrine is also most significant, it means 
that every binding fetter shall ultimately be broken; it 
meant that Nero's slaves were as good as their royal master; 
that princes are no better than peasants; that all men in 
the sight of God are free and equal; that Russian serfdom 
should pass away; that 1776 should resound with the thun- 
der of the Declaration of Independence; it meant that the 
clanging chains of American slavery should be heard no 
more, and that the time will come when white, black, high, 
low, rich, poor, shall be conscious of the God-given dignity 
which belongs to them, and all shall confess that u we have all 
one Father, and one God hath created us." The world is grad- 
ually approaching that era, and when it shall come the 
sweet spirit of the Gospel having touched every human 
heart, all enmity will be done away, caste will be known 
no more, and humanity will be one blessed and unbroken 
brotherhood. 

It cannot be that there is a man anywhere on the 
globe, if he has one spark of moral sense glowing in his 
breast, who would throw himself into antagonism with 
this distinguishing doctrine of Christianity. Opposition to 
this divine truth means the perpetuity of pride and the con- 
tinuance of oppression; it means that injustice shall reign 
and extortion rule; it means that tyranny shall once more 
strike its smarting thongs into the lashed and bleeding 
backs of men; but on the contrary the doctrine of the uni- 
versal brotherhood of man having free course, running and 
being glorified means the universality of peace and the 
reign of love. 

Having walked round about Zion and considered her 
bulworks, and discovered what are the pillars that 
support the temple of Christian truth, we may 
well inquire is the Gospel in danger? Must these 
pillars fall? Amid the conflicts that are raging and 



138 THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 

the general confusion of antiquated faiths, can it be said 
that the unity of God, his Universal Providence, God's Power 
to Pardon, and the Brotherhood of Man, are going down 
in the turmoil and the strife ? Every conscience, believing 
and unbelieving, Christian and unchristian, answers this 
question with an enthusiastic No! But these, in their 
breadth, constitute the whole of the Gospel. Christianity 
is supported by these eternal pillars, how then can it be 
said that the Christian Religion is fading out, and that the 
time will come when it will be a defunct theory ot a well- 
nigh forgotten age ? 

The fact is these self-evident truths stand unchallenged; 
the unbelieving multitude who proclaim war on the Gospel 
waste their words and fight the air. Nor will it pay to 
attack these pillars of truth. Nero and Domitan, Decius 
and Galerius, Celsus and Porphyry, and Julian the apostate, 
and all the adversaries who succeeded them, down to Hume 
and Voltaire, and Paine set themselves in array against the 
Gospel, but they are all dead. Every enemy of Christ, who 
appeared and raged in the first eighteen hundred years of 
the Christian era are dead now, and their philosophies have 
perished with them ; but the Gospel, declaring one God, one 
universe, one humanity, one Lord, one Law-giver, one sal- 
vation, still lives and grows and magnifies while it lives. In 
fifty years Ingersoll and Bradlaugh and all the men of their 
ilk will be dust; and when they shall be forgotten, when 
their threats and denunciations have whispered their last 
echo in the minds of men, the Gospel will continue its good 
work of winning heart to heart, humanity to law, the uni- 
verse to God and God to all. 

But when faith is assailed by some moral cyclone that 
is sweeping over the world, or by some upspringing skepti- 
cism of my own heart, what is the best method of resist- 
ance? It was to answer this question that Jude wrote his 



THE PILLARS OF OUR FAITH. 



139 



epistle; he advises "contend earnestly for the faith once de- 
livered to the saints." But how? Not by force of arms, 
not by heated and excited discussion, but " by self upbuild- 
ing in the faith of the Gospel, by prayer in the Holy Ghost, 
by keeping self in the love of God, and by looking for the 
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." 

Thus each seeking, growing, praying, loving soul has 
the promise of a certain but bloodless victory. Thrusting 
self on the love of the Savior; loving God with all the 
heart, mind, soul and strength; enriched and baptized with 
the Holy Spirit; praying in the Holy Ghost, the mind and 
soul expanding by growing in the knowledge of the truth, 
one need not trouble himself about opposing forms and 
systems of doctrine; he will grow into the certainty of the 
truth himself and his daily life will be the evidence of the 
truth and beauty of his Religion to others. 




THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 



And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadabthe 
son of Rechab coming to meet him; and he saluted hira, and 
said to him, is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy 
heart! And Jehonadab answered, it is. If it be, give me 
thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up 
to him into the chariot.— II Kings, 10, 15. 

The two characters mentioned in this text are Jehu 
and Jehonadab; the first a tempestuous, cruel and crafty 
king, and the second an austere and decided Bedouin Arab. 
Each were great in their way. Jehu was a great charioteer, 
a great soldier, a great politician, a great iconoclast, and 
Jehonadab was great in independence, great in purpose, 
great in self-denial, and great in his influence with his clan 
and over his family, an influence that was felt and recog- 
nized for several generations, for, adopting his sentiments, 
his descendents drank no wine, planted no vineyards, built 
no houses and sowed no seed. 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 141 

The crafty Jehu desired to secure the service and in- 
fluence of Jehonadab, therefore he met him with a royal 
salutation, took him up into his chariot, professed to be 
very zealous for the Lord, pretended that he believed as 
Jehonadab did. " My heart is with thy heart," said the 
prince. u Is thy heart right? If it is give me thy hand," 
and he gave him his hand. 

This question, is thy heart right? means a great deal 
more than Jehu meant, and a great deal more than Jehon- 
adab would be willing to answer in the affirmative. The 
abstemious Arab did not declare that his heart was right 
iu the full meaning of that word, and the diplomatic Jehu 
did not ask that searching question to himself. It is one 
of the most important questions that can be propounded, 
and deserves our most serious attention. The language is 
so simple that we readily catch its meaning, though its 
depth may no L be so easily sounded. 

The inquiry is not in regard to creed, whether you be- 
lieve in Apostolic Succession, Free Will, or Election; these 
may be important in theological discussion, but practically 
they are of no account. It is not a question of denomina- 
tions, whether you be a Baptist, or a Methodist, a Presbyte- 
rian, or a Quaker, an Episcopalian, or a Catholic. Each of 
these may be good in their places, and every man ought 
belong to one church or another, but by the question in 
consideration all dividing lines are obliterated ; it is of vastly 
greater moment than any ecclesiastical distinctions; for no 
doctrine, or ceremony, or polity can make right the hidden 
affections of the human heart. 

Nor has the question anything to do with social posi- 
tion. Listening Senates may sit en wrapt at your feet; a 
nation may wreathe its laurels for your brow; armies may 
wait your word of command; you may be a merchant 



142 THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 

prince, or an adept among artists, and society may make 
you its king, or you may walk in the more humble walks 
of life, to literature and greatness a stranger; it matters 
not; social position cannot answer the fearful question that 
waits to be decided. Is thy heart right? Oh! what a 
question; let us be careful to regard it prayerfully and 
properly. We may observe then, that 

I. THE OPINIONS WHICH WE FORM OF OURSELVES MAY BE 
ERRONEOUS. 

Human nature is prominent at least in one respect, 
prominent in its selfishness. We mention this not to sug- 
gest that selfishness is an unlawful element in character; 
on the contrary, we believe that it is a good and essential 
element in all true character. Properly limited, controlled, 
directed, self-love is an exponent of moral power; from self 
love springs to a great extent love for others. Not appre- 
ciating the value of shelter, raiment, food, knowledge, sal- 
vation for your own comfort and development you will not 
be likely to appreciate it for the sake of others. What 
would it matter to you that some are homeless, naked, 
hungry, ignorant, lost, if you had no regard for these 
things yourself? Then you would eat your crust as cattle 
crunch their corn, heedless of a dying world around you. 

But the probability is that self-love is usually too 
largely developed; there is danger that it will become all- 
covering, producing extravagant views of personal needs 
and personal merit; rendering us greedy and grasping, until 
we have become a sort of Dead Sea, receiving but impart- 
ing not. It is said in classic fable that Narcissus was so 
handsome that all the nymphs fell in love with him, but no 
feminine accomplishment, no grace or beauty of. the gentler 
sex could make the least impression on him, he was proof 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 143 

against all their blandishments, but coming one day to a 
fountain, and stooping to drink its pure, sweet water, Lo, a 
beautiful image was reflected from the pellucid wave; for 
the first time Narcissus was smitten, those locks how fine, 
those cheeks how fair, those lips how tempting, those eyes 
how bright and winsom; he woed, he whispered, but there 
was no response, and there by the fountain he stood pining 
away and died at last of a passionate love of himself. This 
may be an exaggerated picture, yet how many there are 
whose world consists of the little circle in which their own 
self-hood moves, and who are charmed of nothing save by 
what pertains to their own individual importance. 

Even among true men there is general complaint that 
self is larger than the circle that it fills. Who is willing to 
allow that he is in exactly the right place, and receives ab- 
solutely all that belongs to him? Poor men believe it 
would be better for them were they rich, and rich men are 
always nervous to get richer. Politicians seek after place, 
prominence and promotion, and even ministers complain 
that they have not the position that belongs to them, that 
they are competent to fill a larger place, that they ought to 
push others aside in order to make more room for them- 
selves. With such tendencies in ourselves, how can we 
correctly judge in regard to the rightness of our hearts ? 
We shall be apt to over estimate our moral worth. 

Then again our chances for self deception are numer- 
ous, inadequate knowledge, insufficient education, natural 
inabilit}' to discover the difference between differences, in- 
experience, and many other things may possibly mislead 
our judgment and cause us to form an erroneous opinion. 
Child-like, we may be deceived with trifles. Jehonadab-like 
we may be ensnared by fair professions^and promises. Riche- 
lieu-like we may be moved by flattery. The castle we build 
to-day to-morrow we may see in ruins. The philosophy 



144 THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 

that seems so reasonable now, may the next time the wind 
changes lose all its force. Thus we are living in a mi rage. 
Life is all a delusion. We are daily being duped by some 
deception. Under such circumstances how unreliable must 
be the opinions that we form even of ourselves. How can 
we imagine that we are competent to discover and hold 
forth to the world, of our own strength, an absolutely re- 
liable law of right? 

Robert Burns, the most practical of all poets of human 
nature, expressed a good deal of truth in that oft repeated 
stanza: 

" O, wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 

And foolish notion; 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 
And ev'n in devotion!" 

So, frequently the people are better judges of personal 
merit than is the individual. But even the multitude 
measures a man according as he reaches up to or falls be- 
neath their particular standard; the South Sea Islanders 
measure men according to one rule, the Esquimaux accord- 
ing to another, and the civilized nations of Europe accord- 
ing to another; therefore, though we could see ourselves as 
others see us, the case in question would not be changed; 
we could not even then decide upon what is right, fcr the 
public standard is not necessarilly correct. Often the good 
are ignored and the unworthy are honored in the public 
regard; vox populi is not vox dei; the multitude clammored 
that there should be a king in Israel, but that was not ac- 
cording to the will divine; the mob demanded the release of 
Barabbas and the rejection of Jesus, but their cry "away 
with him, 1 ' was not the voice of God. No! it is as Sumner 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT, 145 

said " the sacred rules of right are not to be found in the 
foot-prints of a trampling multitude. 11 We cannot, there- 
fore, look to ourselves, nor to our fellow-men for a standard 
of right, for the opinions both of the individual and the 
multitude may be erroneous. We may inquire then 

II. WHAT IS THE STANDARD OF RIGHT? 

Certainly, the question of the text, is thy heart right? 
is unanswerable until that standard is discovered. Let us 
then, by careful inquiry and cautious moving look until we 
find the standard, or conclude that there is not and there 
cannot be an infallible rule of right. 

1. The standard rule of right and wrong cannot be 
our knowledge. If knowledge made right, then the greater 
our knowledge the greater would be our righteousness. To 
make a rale there must be a consummation, a perfection; 
but we cannot describe a circle around human knowledge 
and say this is all, our capacity is always increasing, and 
our facilities are always multiplying. Each generation 
knows more thau the preceding; what we think we know 
to-day we shall probably find that we are ignorant of to- 
morrow. "I know, 11 says the poet, "my soul has power to 
know all things, yet she is blind and ignorant of all.'" 
How, then, can we take such an indefinable, illimitable, 
changeable tiling as human knowledge and out of it con- 
constrict a rule of right ? Right or wrong for man cannot 
depend on what he knows. 

The principle that knowledge is the parent of good- 
ness utterly fails when applied to practice. Voltaire was a 
knowing man, but it is declared that his character passed 
at considerable discount; Hume was a scholar, but an "ad- 
vocate of licentiousness and suicide; 11 Rosseau was eloquent 



146 THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 

and largely learned in the classics, but "guilty of the basest 
performances which,denying not, he only tried to palliate. 1 
One may go to school for two score years, graduate from 
all the colleges in the country, be possessed of the most 
studious habits, know more than Franklin or Newton, or 
the ripest scholar in the country, yet remain morally un- 
improved and be altogether incapable of making a rule of 
right, for, as Paul said, "professing themselves to be wise." 
philosphers may ''become fools" and be "given up to uu- 
cleanness." Even moral instruction does not make men 
moral, for if the commandment came from man, why 
should the teachings of one be any more authoritative than 
another? And certainly aesthetical culture has not made 
men pure, else Greece might have been proud of the purity 
of its peoples; with all her culture Athens was a cesspool 
of licentiousness and lust, of cruelty and crime. In brief, 
the conclusion is inevitable, an infallible moral rule cannot 
be found in human knowledge as a necessary element in it. 

2. This much desired standard is not to be discovered 
in the state of our feelings. Men are so constituted that 
they cannot all feel alike even under the same circumstan- 
ces. Some people are more susceptible of feeling than 
others; some are cold as ice, others are warm as the glowing 
coal; the emotions of some men are all on the surface, 
others lie deep as the pearls in the Persian Gulf, and it re- 
quires no little effort to find them. The masses move from 
the sanctuary untouched by the love of Jesus, only the few 
are subdued; of the crowd that pass by the little barefoot 
beggar on the corner, only a few drop the wanted penny 
into her hand, the busy throng hurries on its way; to de- 
clare therefore that feeling is a rule of conduct, is to render 
moral action uncertain as the wind; build up a, code of 
morals on human feelings and you would have an incoherent 
confused, meaningless mass of statutes that would he fickle 



THE STANDAED OF EIGHT. 147 

as quicksilver, striking this man's mood to-day, and that 
man's fancy to-morrow, according to the particular temper- 
ature that touched it. 

3. Nor is the standard of right and wrong to he found 
in our original theories. If theory were the rule there 
would he as many rules as theories; there would also he a 
perpetual conflict. What some nations consider to be right 
others regard as wrong. Christian peoples are taught to 
respect the aged, that grey hairs are honorable, that when 
parents are enfeebled by age their children shall care for 
them; we set apart for them the best room in the house, we 
devote to their use the couch of honor, we welcome them 
at our table, when sick we minister to their necessities, 
when they die we follow them mournfully to the grave, we 
erect marble tablets to their memory, we strew flowers on 
the sod that covers them, we enshrine them in the truest 
affections of our hearts, and with joyous anticipation look 
forward to the time when we shall grasp their hands again 
on the golden shore. But there are peoples who believe 
and practice differently, and think and feel the very oppo- 
site of what we do; people who believe that when their 
parents become helpless under the burdens and infirmities 
of years, it is right to kill them. Here, then is a great 
difference in moral theory; our opinion is that it is wrong 
to murder the aged, theirs that it is wrong to detain them 
in their infirmities when they are burdens to themselves 
and their children. Who shall decide when nations disa- 
gree? 

If, then, right and wrong is a mere matter of theory, 
there can be no methods by which moral merit and de- 
merit can be gauged. As we have seen the icicle clinging 
with unyielding grasp to the cornice of our dwelling, so 
long as the frost continued its congealing work, and softly 



148 THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 

melting away when the sun threw out its beams, so we 
have seen man cling most rigidly to his opinions until 
brighter rays of truth began to pour upon them, and then 
those opinions have disappeared. Many thoughts which 
we called our best are 

"Like the snow-flake on the river, 
A moment seen, then gone forever." 

Shall we then accept such melting nothings as the 
standard of right and wrong? Can we accept a human 
theory or opinion as a rule of right and yet be true to com- 
mon sense? 

4. If then, neither theory, nor feeling, nor knowledge 
are just criteria of right and wrong, what is the standard ? 
Where shall we find an infallible rule that will aid us in 
correctly answering the question of the text, is thy heart 
right? We reply that it can be found nowhere but in the 
will of God; that must be the standard, for we cannot go 
beyond it; it alone is all-covering; there is consummation 
and perfection in it. If that rule can be found, and our 
hearts are in unison with it, it being absolute, we cannot be 
wrong, we must be right; or out of harmony with that 
rule, we shall at least see in what direction our duty lies. 
But where shall we go to find God's fixed and unchangea- 
ble standard of right? Not to nature, for moral things, 
cannot be measured by a material rule; not to sprinkling 
priest, or failing patriarch ; not to the philosophy of the 
schools or the ethics of the moralist; these have been tried 
and too frequently have been found wanting; but we may 
go to the f aithlul page, if indeed it is a revelation from 
God, and find that infallible rule therein made plain. 

5. A field now opens up to view which has been trav- 
ersed time and time again, yet at each new exploration new 
discoveries are made in evidence of the fact that the Bible 



THE STANDARD OP RIGHT. 149 

contains the revealed will of God, and is a sufficient rule of 
faith and practice. It is a field too vast to be entered now, 
but passing, it may be observed that our Heavenly Father 
has not left his Will and Testament to us unsupported, but 
rather he has thrown about it the most convincing evi- 
dence. That the Bible is something more than the product 
of a human brain is proved by the perfect harmony of 
every part of the record; by the hallowed precepts it pro- 
poses, and the pure life it enjoins; by those revelations of 
God and those disclosures of the future that characterize 
it; by an array of miracles performed in attestation of its 
own truth; by its long list of fulfilled and perpetually 
fulfilling prophecies. Its truth is proved also by the great 
plan of Redemption which the Bible unfolds and which 
could not have been the thought of uninspired and earth- 
groveling men, and also by a thousand external evidences 
that confirm its statements; thus bodies of embalmed 
kings, fallen monuments of past ages, rocks written all 
over with a pen of iron, are to-day rising from the graves 
where they have reposed for thousands of years, and com- 
ing into court testify to the truth of the inspired page. All 
these facts, and others too numerous to mention, point to 
the Holy Scriptures as the record of the divine will, the 
great unalterable, God-given standard of right and wrong. 
We observe that 

HI. COMPARING THE HEART WITH GOD'S RULE OF RIGHT, 
" NONE IS GOOD, NO, NOT ONE." 

Weighed in this balance we are each found wanting, 
according to this measurement our hearts are not right, by 
this rule applied the best man abhors himself. It declares 
" the wickedness of man is very great, and every imagina- 
tion of his heart is evil continually;" that is man as a 



150 THE STANDARD OP RIGHT. 



whole, not an individual here and there, is under the ban of 

unrighteousness. 

Compare your heart, for instance, with the ten com- 
mandments of the decalogue. Is there not something 
which, as it were an idol, holds a higher place in your 
thought than God? Is it true that he is in all your 
thoughts? Then your heart is not right. Are you not 
frequently found bowed down before an idol, a golden calf 
perhaps, not literally as Israel did. but in such a sense as 
that to get rich seems to be your sole occupation? 
Then your heart is not right. Is yQur language 
always chaste, never profane, never speaking the 
name divine thoughtlessly, uselessly, irreverently? If 
not the heart is not right. That blessed Sabbath, do you 
love to rest on that day, in body, mind, soul, in the sense 
of self-devotion to God, entering the sanctuary, restful in 
worship, meditation and prayer? If not your heart is not 
right. Have you in every respect obeyed the divine man- 
date, to honor father and mother, not casting them off to 
shift for themselves, nor making them feel humbled by the 
dependence of their condition ? If not thy heart is not 
right. Have you never endangered huaian life by your 
neglect, nor without a cause hated your brother thus fos- 
tering the spirit of murder in your heart? Have you never 
trespassed upon those sacred boundaries with which God has 
defined society, and defended the family, mor under the in- 
flammation of passion cast a lustful eye beyond the line? 
If you have your heart is not right. Has all the property 
ever gotten by yourself been honestly obtained, so that not 
one cent's worth can in Christian justice be claimed by an- 
other? If not your heart is not right. Have you never 
tried to injure your neighbor by an ungenerous remark', by 
a word intended to put him in a bad light before the peo- 
ple? Have you never desired the possessions of another, 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 151 

nor resolved that by loaning him money that you knew he 
could not pay, those possessions you would some day se- 
cure? If you have done such things your heart was not 
right. Or if each one of those ' commandments has been 
observed and kept, not because you really wanted to observe 
them inviolate, but simply because they were law, then, cer- 
tainly, the heart was wrong, radically wrong. It is not 
enough to serve God from compulsion, or from fear; the 
righteous heart elects to serve him from principle, because 
it is in blissful harmony with the divine will. Nay more, 
Christ puts the moral requirements of God's law on the 
ground of love, so that if God is not loved with fulness of 
heart, mind, soul and strength, then, according to the 
spirit of this rule it is impossible to answer affirmatively the 
question, is thy heart right? 

That there is in these questions a fearful pertinency 
must be admitted I ask them because I desire to be perti- 
nent; how can I be faithful and yet forbear to present the 
truth with searching plainness? But those interrogatories 
embody the rules according to which heart righteousness is 
to be measured; they indicate what shall be the decision of 
the judgment; they proclaim the solemn truth that we are 
all wrong; the whole world is guilty; why this is so may 
not be a practical question, but that it is so is a solemn 
fact. Why did Christ taste death for every man if every 
man were deserving of life without it? And why should 
there be a light to light every man that cometh into the 
world if every man that cometh into the world were not 
born in darkness? 

I have read, somewhere, of a Hindoo robber who, 
while waiting in prison, to be executed according to the 
mandate of the law, informed the jailor that he was the 
custodian of a certain important secret which he desired to 



152 THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 



communicate to the king. Admitted into the royal pres- 
ence the culprit declared that trees could he made to hear 
fruit of gold if a coin were planted by a hand that had 
never been guilty of a dishonest deed; but robber, nor 
prince, nor prime minister, nor priest dared to plant the 
coin. I think, observed the thief, we ought all be hung, for 
there is not an honest man among us. So, though we are 
not all robbers or assassins, yet if our lives depended on 
clean hands and pure hearts, there would be some spot or 
stain demanding our execution. 

But suppose there were no Gospel to win the soul to a 
better life; no word divine uttering its terrible denuncia- 
tions against sin; no law asserting its power and pronounc- 
ing its penalty; no spirit striving, no conscience reproving, 
and no church to call the world from darkness to light, 
could there be any thought of sin? Certainly, for every- 
where the heart whispers its own guiltiness to an accusing 
conscience. In Pagan lands, among heathenism and idola- 
try, philosophers like Plato have regarded man as one who 
has been stripped of his moral glory; and scholars like 
Marcus Antoninus have declared that kt men are born mere 
slaves to their appetites and p issions, 11 indeed every plead- 
ing votary at an idol shrine gives evidence to the fact that 
"all have sinned." 

But the question might be asked are we right with 
ourselves? Is the heart true to its own convictions? Do 
men live as well as they know? And the answer must be 
given that an unrighteous heart is not excusable on the 
ground of its ignorance; if men sin at all they sin in broad 
daylight; they sin because they trample on their supreme 
convictions? the Chinaman knows he ought not to eat 
opium; the Lndian knows he ought not get drunk; thus ac- 
cording to their own thought men are wrong; they know 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 153 

very well that there is often a conflict between the will and 
the desire, between the thought and the action; we are not 
right with ourselves; even independent of the Book and 
the Grospel, most men, before the tribunal of their own 
moral sense, would stand convicted and condemned. They 
weigh themselves in the balances and are found wanting. 

The fact is we are all wrong, naturally wrong; we go 
astray from our birth; untrained and unrestrained we are 
more likely to grow crooked than straight; we are radically 
wrong; the virus of sin lies at the very roots of our natures; 
our hearts are touched with a hereditary taint as well as 
our bodies ; the slug of sin is within us as sure as the worm 
is in the butterfly; but inoral possibility is also within us 
certainly as there are wings folded up in the nature of the 
caterpillar; give us favorable opportunity and a willingness 
to mount upward and we shall leave the groveling grub be- 
hind us; until that better being is called out our tastes, our 
desires, our feelings are downward, depravity takes hold of 
us, " the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; 1 ' we 
are morally corrupt and need a physician; the cry of every 
serious soul is "is there no balm in Gilead, is there no phy- 
sician there?" 

Christ came to make this crooked world straight; 
Christ came to make corrupt hearts clean. " He is the 
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the 
sins of the whole world. 1 ' His remedy is efficacious, ask 
the dying thief, ask a thousand living witnesses, ask all the 
glorified. Oh! friend, is thy heart right? If it is not right 
surely it ought to be righted. You have failed many times 
in your most earnest endeavors to make your heart right. 
Your best attempt resulted in nothing more than a break- 
ing away from some bad habit, which perhaps overcame 



154 THE STANDARD OF 'RIGHT. 



you at last, and the malady of sin, like an eating cancer, 
still remained in your moral nature. But what you have 
failed to do for yourself Christ can succeed in doing for 
you. Wilt thou be made whole? Behold "all power is 
Sfiven unto him in heaven and in earth. 1 ' 

When Israel had defiled the land by their doings, and 
were cast out like an andean thing, and scattered abroad 
among the heathen, the Lord promised that when he should 
become sanctified in them u a new heart also will I give, 
and a new spirit will I put within you. 1 ' That new heart, 
that new spirit is what the sin-smitten world most needs. 
God is no respecter of persons; he will do as well for us as 
for Israel. He says U I will take away the stony heart and 
give you a heart of flesh. 11 

What a difference there is between the old heart and 
the new; the old was hard, stubborn, cold, dead, like a 
stone, nothing moved it, eternal things, nor deathless love, 
nor all the agony of him who died on Calvary could stir its 
emotion; but made new under the power of the Holy Spirit 
the truest passions, the deepest feeling, the livliest interest 
in Heavenly things are aroused. Again the old heart was 
proud, lofty, self-righteous, but the new is made humble, it 
bows at the feet of the man of sorrows, it chooses suffering 
and affliction, and the lowliest place rather than the enjoy- 
ment of the pleasures of sin for a season. The old heart 
was earthly, groveling, sensuous, the perishing present was 
all-sufficient for its highest ambitions ; but the new is Heav- 
enly, the spirit of Christ has touched it. its hopes tower up 
into the eternities, the light of the Golden City bathes its 
thoughts, desires, affections, it is full of the music and mel- 
ody of celestial song, and 

" They who carry this music in their heart, 
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Ply their daily task with busier feet, 
Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat." 



THE STANDARD OF RIGHT. 



155 



But we must drop this great and important question; it 
is a sermon in itself; it is a question that each must decide 
for himself and not for another; it is a question that we 
shall confront some clay at the Judgment Seat of Christ. If 
thine heart is right, or if there is a desire and purpose in 
your soul to get right, then whatever your education, or 
your social position, or your peculiar opinions, whether you 
be rich as Croesus or poor as Paul the eremite, give me thy 
hand as my heart is with thy heart. 




PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 



For bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable 
unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of 
that which is to come. — 1 Tim., 4-8. 

Paul left Timothy in Ephesus in charge of the Ephe- 
sian Church, and wrote to him a letter of advice and in- 
struction, which was the more necessary because Timothy 
was a youth and the Ephesian congregation was in trouble. 
Some of its members were departing from the faith, and 
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, and 
others were formal and hypocritical, pretending to great 
spiritual attainment because they abstained from meats and 
marriage, and sought merit in bodily mortification and 
penance. Paul therefore advised Timothy, in the language 
of my text, "exercise thyself rather unto godliness, for 
bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable 
unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and 
of that which is to come." 

Discussing this question in regard to the profit of god- 
liness, it will be necessary to seek in the onset a correct 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 157 

definition of the term. What then are we to understand 
by godliness? Literally godliness is Grod-like-ness; but it 
cannot be that in order to peace, prosperity and happiness 
in the present world, or in the world to come, the human 
must become divine, like God. God is inimitable, any at- 
tempt at aping him would be blasphemously absurd; the 
finite cannot imitate the infinite; man and God are so un- 
like as to be incomparable, yet godliness is a quality that 
pertains to man; hence the injunction ''add to your patience 
godliness, 1 ' 1 "follow after godliness," " lead a quiet, peacea- 
ble life in all godliness; 1 ' but, as it is impossible to be godly 
in the literal sense, what may be understood by godliness 
when applied to man? 

The apostle declares "great is the mystery of godli- 
ness, 11 "God was manifest in the flesh; 11 in this passage the 
apostle, by implication, teaches that Christ was the godlike 
man; "on him 11 it is said "the spirit was poured without 
measure. 11 So we judge that a godly man is one who like 
Christ has received on his heart the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost, not in that fulness in which Jesus received it, but 
according as he is able to receive it. 

Perhaps the meaning will be made more clear by con- 
sidering the meaning of the term God. The word God is 
an Anglo-Saxon word and means good. A godly man 
therefore is one who is good. " The fruit of the spirit is 
goodness. 11 Godliness then, or goodness, pertains to fallen 
man under certain operations of the divine spirit. In short, 
godliness is reverence and love for God; conformity to the 
divine will, assimilation into the divine likeness and charac- 
ter; it is Religion in the heart; it is the Gospel in practice; 
it is holiness; it is purity of life; in two words it is Chris- 
tian character. Now the apostle declares that this "godli- 
ness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the 
life that now is, and of that which is to come. 11 



158 PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 

We desire at this time to consider the profitableness of 
such a life, and invite attention to 

I. THE DIRECT STATEMENT OF THE TEXT, "GODLINESS IS 
PROFITABLE UNTO ALL THINGS." 

This is the language of a wiser man than I. This 
declaration fell from the lips of the great Apostle Paul; his 
talents were as brilliant, his opportunities as good, his ex- 
periences as broad as those of any opponent that Christian- 
ity ever had. Endowed with natural gifts of the very high- 
est order, inspired from above, standing at the fountain- 
head of all the philosophy that has tinctured modern 
thought, he proposed that "godliness is profitable unto all 
things," and challenged the world to dispute it. Where is 
the logician who has proved the statement to be untrue? 
And where is the argument by which its fallacy is demon- 
strated ? 

The unscrupulous Rousseau,nor the speculative Renan, 
nor the mythical Strauss, nor even tire poetic Ingersoll has 
been able to prove that that "godliness which has the 
promise of the life that now is. and of that which is to 
come," is not "profitable unto all things/' Indeed the 
proposition has never been seriously questioned; and the 
gist of the apostolic -"nought has been crystalized into that 
old saw, adopted alike by Christians and infidels, " honesty 
is the best policy;" and it will obtain in human hearts so 
long as the moral sense retains its place, for godliness is the 
superlative degree of right. But let us look at the apostle's 
declarations concering godliness. 

" It has the promise of the life that now is." There is 
not an important want in our natures for which there cau- 
not be found in the Scriptures a specific promise. The 
psalmist covered the whole ground when he said " the Lord 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 159 

is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 1 ' We want bread, yes, 
and it is promised "your bread shall be given, and water 
shall be sure." We need raiment, yes, " if God so clothe 
the grass of the field shall he not much more clothe you, 
ye of little faith? 11 We need defense against slander and 
calumny, yes, and the promise is " trust in the Lord and he 
shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy 
judgment as the noon-clay. 11 We need support in sorrow, 
yes, so it is declared " the eternal Grod is thy refuge, and 
underneath are the everlasting arms. 11 We shall need su- 
perhuman aid in the hour of death, very true, and therefore 
the prophet tells us, " though passing through the waters 
they shall not overflow thee, and through the valley and 
shadow of Death, thou shalt fear no evil, for his rod and 
staff shall comfort thee. 11 These are all exceeding precious 
promises; they show that "godliness has the promise of the 
life that now is. 11 

The promise is all-covering, but is it true ? Is there 
any evidence of its fulfillment? We need to look at the 
thought from the standpoint of its practicability, as well 
as from the fulness of its promise. From such a stand- 
point we can at least say that generally speaking a good 
man has the best chance in this world. 

Godliness promotes good health. It is declared 
that "the wicked shall not live out half his days." 
Statistics show that one quarter^ of all who are born 
die before they are seven years old, and one half die 
before they are seventeen, a principal cause being 
the infirmity and corruption inherited from their ancestors. 
Had the fathers been virtuous and temperate the children 
would have enjoyed a greater longevity. Among those 
who survive seventeen, it can be clearly shown that the 
average life of temperate exceeds that of intemperate peo- 
ple, that the virtuous live longer than the vicious, the just 



160 PKOFIT OF GODLINESS. 

live longer than the dishonest, and the godly than the sin- 
ful. For instance, the average length of human life is 
twenty-five years, but that of the Friends, a devout Chris- 
tian sect of Great Britain and Ireland, is fifty-six years; 
that the average of life among them is more than double 
that among other people, is a strong argument in favor of 
the health-promoting and life-protecting power of godli- 
ness. 

Nor is this strange; the fact is a natural one; the world 
expects that godliness will promote the health of one who 
possesses it. for it forbids all excess, it panders to no passion, 
it prevents wrong, it requires temperance, industry, frugal- 
ity, cleanliness, and provides for soul and body the sweet 
recuperating rest of a Sabbath every week; and sure as the 
world shall become Christian in practice as well as theory, 
all filthiness will be destroyed, all epidemics will be pre- 
vented and the longevity oi the patriarchs may eventually 
come back to the world. Not until the people become 
godly will a rejuvinated earth be able to sing with full sig- 
nificance, 

" O death where is thy sting, 
grave where is thy victory ?" 

Godliness makes a dear mind. The health of 
the mind depends largely on the health of the body; 
the stomach and the brain are intimately related; 
pure, sublime thought cannot be evolved from a brain 
that has been fed by a stomach that is a gas retort, or 
emits an oder of nitrogen, or Hushes the blood with fumes 
of alcohol. As godliness therefore promotes health it must 
also lend its aid m strengthening the brain and clearing the 
mind. 

Hut godliness works out its favorable results in still an- 
other way; it affords the mind a character whereby it is 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 161 

linked to the eternal; it lifts thought from the gross and 
the sensuous into a divine sphere, and occupies the mental 
powers with the grandest themes and the most glorious 
ideals, not sectarian and narrow, hut broad and lofty as the 
thought of the divine soul of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Godliness secures worldly prosperity. It could not 
with fairness be stated that all who are prosperou 
are godly, and all who are godly are prosperous. Chris- 
tians are poor sometimes, and wicked men are often 
wealthy; yet it can be said that godliness in its amplitude, 
as it enters into character and develops a perfect manhood, 
must endow its possessor with a power that will help him 
on the way to success and prosperity. A godly man will 
be prudent, forethoughtful, not rash in business, for he will 
take time to pray over it ; he will be considerate, seeking to 
auapt certain means to certain ends; he will be sober, 
neither a voluptuary nor a spendthrf t, not wasting his sub- 
stance in riotous living, but economical and careful, and 
will add industry to his sobriety; thus grasping, sanctify- 
ing and employing his own powers and opportunities he 
will successfully direct them along the varied lines of hon- 
orable business. 

Besides a godly man, because honest in all his deal, 
true in all his transactions, wins for himself a good reputa- 
tion, and this is worth everything in prosperity. True, 
such men as Tweed get rich, yet there is a sense in which 
they are the poorest, the most unsuccessful men on earth. 
They are poor in peace, poor in self-respect, poor in friends, 
poor in character, and poor in everything that goes to make 
a man. Gold and city lots and marble fronts do not make 
such people rich. Better be a poor fisherman, little and 
unknown, living on the sand in a hut, content with a hard 
biscuit, rich in the conscienceness of ones own integrity, 
rich in the good-will of ones indigent neighbors^ rich in 
faith toward God, than the most affluent rogue that ever 
reposed on the soft cushions of a palace. 



162 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 



But these are exceptional cases. We are not to judge 
by them. The question is are the chances for a good man 
ordinarily better than the chances of an ungodly man ? 
And it seems to me that even the casual observer must see 
that if men k, obey God they spend their years in prosperity 
and their days in pleasure;' 1 " but the hypocrites in heart 
heap up wrath, they die in youth and their life is among 
the unclean. 11 

But there is one more thought that I must notice; it 
is that the godly man will be likely to succeed because he 
follows the leadings of Providence and seeks to be installed 
in that particular profession or trade that is best adapted 
to his nature and circumstances; there is such a thing as 
divine guidance for man, we can get our proper places by 
asking God for them. The divine spirit will lead us to 
consult our tastes, tempers, capacities; and when there is a 
suitableness between ourselves and our positions we shall be 
most apt to succeed. Now if godliness will help render a 
man prudent, sober, industrious, honest, and adapt him to 
his place, why should he not prosper? What is to hinder 
him? Is it not true that godliness is profitable unto all 
things having promise of the life that now is ? 

Godliness is profitable in death. 

Who can die like the Christian? If you reply Socrates 
did, I answer, not with such triumph; besides Socrates was 
in spirit a Christian. Infidels are not so hopeful and happy 
in that hour. "Hold on to } r our principles," said a scoffer 
to his dying friend; " but what have I to hold on to, 11 said 
he. Enmity to Christ is not an agreeable thing to live with, 
but it is a dreadful thing to be haunted with in the hour of 

death. 

" The last end of the good man is peace, 
How calm his exit; 

Night dews fall not more lightly to the ground, 
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft." 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 163 



Godliness also has promise of ihe life that is to come. 
It sweeps beyond the present and commands the eter- 
nal future, lifting the everlasting doors, revealing joy in the 
presence of God, crowns that fade not aw ay, and glories incor- 
ruptible; in short, godliness comprehends time and eternity 
and therefore is "profitable unto all things." We can say 
this at least, that Christianity gives man some hope, but 
infidelity gives him nothing. Vice promises pleasure in 
this world, although it bitterly disappoints its votaries, 
sometimes bringing pain while the soul is looking for 
sweetness, but it promises nothing, absolutely nothing, for 
the eternal future, unless it is despair. Beauty cannot 
command the gates that open into the Jasper City. Afflu- 
ence, though it tower into fabulous dimensions, cannot 
bribe death, nor extort from the grave the mystery of im- 
mortality. Yea, I may gain the whole world and lose my 
soul; I may be monarch of all I survey, yet find the portal 
of glory closed against me; but faith upspringing from 
pure character lifts the veil. Religion sweeps away the 
mists from the evermore, and a godly life sweetly promises 
to the soul a Heavenly destiny. If there is any promise of 
eternal bliss, it is not to the vicious or the sensuous, but 
for men like Paul, who have fought the good fight, finished 
the course, and kept the faith; it is for those whose lives 
have been radiant with the light of the throne of God. 
Let us consider 

II. THE UNREASONING RASHNESS WITH WHICH THE RELIG- 
ION OF GODLINESS IS OPPOSED. 

Some people can believe almost everything but the Bi- 
ble, even that a man is a lineal descendent of an oyster, 
and have faith in in everybody but Christ. It is said that 
priests have been degraded for dropping their miters, and 
that dictators have been humiliated becouse a rat squeaked. 



1(J i PKOPIT OF GODLINESS. 



So there are men who reject Christ because a Christian has 
stumbled, and discard the Gospel because of some pious 
idiosynocrasy in its adherents. Let men show that godliness 
is unnecessary before they abandon it; let them prove that 
Christians are false before they condemn them. 

It is unjust to condemn all for the sake of a few; 
might as well judge of the skill of Phidias by the marble 
bits his chisel has chipped from the block, or the master- 
piece of an Angelo by the priming on his canvas, as judge 
of the beauty of the Gospel by a half dozen of its indiffer- 
ent adherents. 

It is equally unfair to dismiss the claims of Christianity 
without considering them; for it is possible that by ignor- 
ing them the most desirable boon and blessing capable of 
being possessed by man in the present life is thereby rejec- 
ted. Wise men will not tear down the Gospel until some- 
thing better has been found to take its place, for it may be 
detrimental to the world's best interests to destroy it. It is 
possible that the Church may be too much like the statue 
o£ the pope in prayer, its devotion artificial, its lips marble, 
its heart stone; yet, after all, it may perpetuate, in monu- 
ment at least, the purest principles, the divinest doctrines, 
and the noblest impulses and inspirations that ever stirred 
the depths of the human soul. Let us not then rashly ran 
upon the Gospel, axe in hand, and attempt to hew it 
down. 

An oriental monarch demanded to know of his minis- 
ters how he might make his subjects happy. Many sug- 
gestions were made, numerous rules were proposed; one 
came with his speech, another with written documents, but 
the last who presented his opinion simply said u love God. 11 
Now it may be that this last was the best statesman of them 
all; perhaps it were better for all peoples of all lands and 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 165 

nations, if their rulers were God-fearing and God-loving 
men. It may be that the kingdoms of the earth would be 
greatly benefitted if kings, princes, presidents, senators, 
ministers possessed so much love for God that they would 
admire, love and practice his moral law. Personally, I 
would prefer to live under the iron rule of a Cromwelhwith 
the banner of Christ waving over me, than under the re- 
gime of a Robespierre, drinking of the spirit of a Christ- 
less commune. I say, perhaps it might be a good thing if 
every ruler were possessed of a Christian conscince so ten- 
der that when the Eternal thunders "thou shalt not steal," 
their love for God and right would compel them to respond 
Lord, I will not ! 

There is in the human mind such a disrelish for politi- 
cal, diplomatic and governmental injustice, that we should 
be very shy of controverting that religious system which, 
having the prestige of antiquity and the power of a deep, 
wide and exalted influence declares that its sole and con- 
stant intent is to recast individuals and empires in the 
mould of godliness, and according to the patterns of truth 
and right; but such is the Gospel, reject it therefore and we 
may reject its highest good. 

Then again, there may be some good in the bare idea 
that Christianity is in the world. Though the Christ of 
the Gospels were unreal, a beautiful myth only, an imagin- 
ary life, a mere picture thrown upon the moral canvas of 
the world, still it is possible that that ideal affects humanity 
for its good; at least it gives us something to think about; 
it presents a perfect man to our thought, and a perfect man, 
though only an ideal, has not been so much as idealized out 
side of the Gospel; we see the picture and are moved to 
measure up to its excellence; without the ideal we could not 



166 PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 

reach out after something- better than we are; the coming of 
that thought into the minds of men. was, as Renan said, 
"a capital event in the history of the world." 

Or, suppose it were contended that the moral charac- 
ter of the Gospel is simply a sublime notion, too lofty to be 
reached, or to be practical, still it must be productive of 
something. Philosophies are nothing but fancies, yet those 
philosophies produce peculiar types of thinkers; so the 
Christian notion of a higher moral life, as it spreads from 
empire to empire, extends from century to century is creating 
its peculiar type of character, a character so marked indeed 
that the thought and civilization of this era cannot be trans- 
muted into the thought and civilization of the world before 
the flood, nor of that which preceded the Apostolic age; 
nor is there a man of sense, anywhere on the globe, who 
would be glad to see the change were it possible. 

. So it is in regard to the Gospel declaration of a contin- 
uance of existence after death; even on the supposition that 
this too is but an ideal, the world is better for that thought 
than it could be without it. It touches our hearts and 
whispers " be ready"; it sottens our sorrows; it puts a divine 
significance into life; and invests godliness and virtue with 
a winning power; the thought of a future life takes the 
thorn from the pillar of death; transforms the grave into 
a restful couch for sleep, and it fills the universe with death- 
less, bright-eyed beings, in whose invisible circles our Joved 
ones are waiting. We say then, although all these are 
nothing more than beautiful ideals, ideals that never will be 
realized, the world is better for them; but if they are real 
as we are confident they must be, if there is an all power- 
ful Christ, a perfect salvation, a pure and spotless character, 
an immortal life, a reward and a retribution, who can tell 
the mighty influences of those world-redeeming truths? 
Let us try to show that 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 167 



III. ANY POSSIBLE OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL OF GODLI- 
NESS IS PUERILE AND FOOLISH, BECAUSE IT CAN NOTPOS- 
SIBLY DO THE WORLD ANY HARM. ' 

That wickedness in the world is an indisputable fact; 
a great and important problem is, How can the world be 
lifted into a higher moral plane? Many reformatory meas- 
ures, each having its own peculiarity, have been proposed, 
adopted, and have failed; the wrecks of human efforts in 
this direction lie strewn along the track of the ages. But 
now, after every other plan has proved deficient, the Gospel 
is declared to be a panacea for human ill, and we are told 
that it is profitable unto all things in this world and the 
next. 

Every thoughtful person must have observed that 
shrewd opponents never attack the moral principles of the 
Gospel. They bend every effort to destroy the evidences of 
Christianity, but make the most touching confessions in re- 
gard to its moral sublimity. If the world may retain the 
ethics of the Bible, ethics that develop a spiritual life, 
and a moral character, the loss would not be absolute though 
compelled to cast away its scientific evidence. So far as 
these moralties are concerned the controversey between 
Christianity and its opponents is nothing but a war of 
words; the bitterest opposition can raise no possible ob- 
jection to goodness of heart, purity of life and sweetness 
and heavenliness of spirit; it has at least one marked and 
essential quality, that is, harmlessness. 

Godliness implies conformity to divine law; there can 
be nothing injurious in this, though every man, woman, 
and child were to keep sacred and inviolate each and every 
commandment of the Decalogue, the world of humanity 
would recieve no harm. Tell us what injury could come to 
body, mind or soul, if Polytheism were to be superseded by 



168 PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 

Monotheism, and the world were to worship one God instead 
of a million? The universe could suffer no harm thougdi all 
idolatry were prohibited and all image worship and super- 
stition were done away; human nature would remain un- 
harmed, even if swearing were no more, if profanity were 
never heard on the streets, and if every lip that is now pro- 
fane were to become chaste and pure. >fo laboring, toiling 
child of earth could suffer hurt because, for every six days 
of hard work he should permit himself to enjoy one sweet, 
recuperating day of rest, the Christian Sabbath has done 
the world no wrong. Though filial love should swell in 
every human breast, the family, nor society, nor the world 
could be harmed thereby; surely it were harmless to defend 
human life against every unholy effort to abridge it; and 
to protect and fortify the sanctity of the marriage vow; to 
prohibit political, social, and private injustice of all kinds; 
to destroy perjury, whispering, slander and calumny; to an- 
nihilate covetousness and put down every unlawful and sinful 
desire; to instill -love into human hearts in a degree so 
great that every man shall love his neighbor as himself, and 
his God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, could 
not possibly bring harm upon what is now a selfish and 
sinful race. Yet. this is precisely what the Gospel proposes 
to do, when i> given to it uninterrupted sway. We affirm, 
therefore, that immoral it 7 w >uld be no more abundant; 
pauperism and ignorance 110 more general; and pain and 
sorrow no more severe, if every sinner should become godly, 
and all the world were to become Christian; the Gospel 
universally obtaining and forever supereminent could not 
do the world any harm. 

It has been said that Religion has made men crazy; 
but the authorities on this pha-e ol unfortunate humanity 
do not recognize pure and undefiled Religion, as a cause, 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 169 



immediate or remote, of insanity. Morel, for instance, 
makes immorality the starting- point, not Religion. He 
traces the developments and the results of mania, melan- 
cholia, dementia, through four generations: in the first he 
finds alcoholic excess and brutual degradation ; in the second 
hereditary drunkenness, maniacal attacks and general par- 
alysis; in the third, silly, sentimental sobriety, goodishness 
coming from sheer inability to be anything else, hypo, lyrn- 
permania or fright, systematic insanity and tendency to 
murder: in the fourth he finds feeble-mindedness, stupidity, 
gradual transition to complete idiocy and the probable ex- 
tinction of the family name and blood ; Thus Grod in his 
providence at last wipes out immorality. 

Insanity, therefore, is deprivation of health, it arises 
from a corrupting virus in the bloody it does not proceed 
from Religion; Godliness is not responsible for the world's 
vast stock of diseased brains and cantankerous livers. In- 
sanity is the result af sin ; men get crazy for the want of 
Religion, never from the swe t and peaceful enjoyment of 
it. u The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffer- 
ing, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. 1 ' 
They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the af- 
fections and lusts. How can such graces and virtues make 
men mad? They who have peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost cannot be melancholic; they who make the best of 
this life and seek to be furnished for a world to come are 
not demented. 

1 do not pretend to say that Christians never lose their 
reason; when one thinks ot the stock from which we have 
come, and the experiences through which we have passed, 
the savagery of our Saxon sires,the gluttony of our fathers 
and the fearful flood of intemperance and licentiousness 



170 PROFIT OF GODLIKESS. 



that Niagara-like lias been pouring into our viens, we are sur- 
prised that the world is not one vast Bedlam and that the 
human race is not an army of lunatics a billion strong. It 
must be that some other force lias counteracted the inher- 
ited tendencies of our natures; that force, for all I know, 
may be the soft, sanctifying spell of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, for there is no balm for a troubled heart or an agitated 
mind that is more poteut than purity, more pacifying than 
a well grounded hope. There is not a maniac among men 
whose insanity could not be mitigated if the Glospel could 
exert its power upon him, nor a human soul on this broad 
footstool of Grod that could possibly be harmed if somehow 
the spirit of Jesus could captivate and mould him. 

It is urged that Paul received harm for having been a 
Christian, for he was " in perils of water, in perils of rob- 
bers, in perils among his own countrymen/' perils which 
could not have come upon him had it not been for his relig- 
ion. This is true. But it was Paul who said "godliness is 
profitable unto all things;'* it would seem that he made at 
least as much as he lost, for though "troubled on every side. 
he was not distressed; perplexed, yet he was not in despair; 
persecuted, but he was not forsaken." There was some- 
thing in his Religion that caused him to glory in infirmity 
and to enable him to count not his life dear so that he 
might win Christ. The gain therefore counterbalanced 
every loss, and there was no harm. 

His religion was always gain to Paul. At one time 
he enumerated some of the evils that come upon the chil- 
dren of sin. surmisings, disputings, pride, ignorance, envy. 
raillery, strife; then, looking on the other side to those who 
have put on Christ, he said. " but godliness with content- 
ment is great gain." Again he considered all his 
earthly promise, his birth, his blood, his nationality, 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 171 

his prospects as a lawyer, his importance as a Pharisee, and 
•'all tilings" else, his education, influence, talents, worldly 
possibilities, as wealth, fame, honor, position and dignity 
all of which if pursued might have brought him gain, but 
all these he counted loss; they were straws, they were dross, 
compared to Christ. "Yea, doubtless, 1 ' he said, " I count 
all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord. 1 ' Coming down to the last hour did Paul 
regret the consecration he had made *? Did he think that 
he might have made a better choice? Did he believe that 
harm had come to him for having been a Christian? Far 
from it. The retrospect of the past was a comfort and an 
nspiration, as' he meditated upon it, he said, "I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished the the course, I have 
kept the faith; and now the time of my departure is at 
hand, I am ready, ready to*be offered, henceforth there is 
laid up for me a crown. v "for me to die is gain." 

But suppose that the Apostle had thought of his suf- 
ferings, would not that have dampened his ardor? A_h ! but 
he did think of them; he added them all up, a 
fearful sum, troubles, distresses, perplexities, desparings, 
persecutions, toils, sufferings, strifes, shipwrecks, perils, 
weariness, painfulness, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness; af- 
flictions, deaths, and, when he had compassed the sum of 
them he reckoned along a different line, with different, fac- 
tors, and a different result, here is the column: hope, love, 
liberty, things prepared, glory, honor, peace, sonship, heir- 
ship, crowns incorruptible, immortality, eternal life and, a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, and now he 
subtracts this from that and tells the difference. What is 
the difference? *'I reckon," he says, " that the sufferings 
of the present time, are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory that shall be revealed in us. 1 ' So, then, Paul's 
religion did not hurt him; and, it would not hurt us, even, 
though we had much as he. 



1^2 PROFIT OF GODLINESS. 

Thus we have seen that godliness is profitable unto all 
thing*, not only theoretical ly, bat practically profitable, 
profitable as a fact, profitable as an ideal. We have seen 
that it covers time and eternity and therefore it must be in 
itself everything. Whoever is wanting in godliness, really 
has nothing, and is in need of everything; he is pursuing 
phantoms, they will all vanish from his vision soon; and 
then his soul before God will be naked, and poor, and mean, 
he will feel like crying on the rocks and mountains to hide 
him from the presence of him who sitteth upon the throue. 
Oh! that I could impress the young people with the im- 
portance of this truth. Young man, young woman, you 
have nothing in all this universe of God unless yoti have 
this godlinees that promises all the present and all the fu- 
ture. It alone gives value to time and eternity, and of all 
that charms you now, and brightens to-morrow with their 
dazzling glory, nothing will remain by and by but charac- 
ter. Godliness is the state of being Godly. It is character. 
Have you it? Have you that character that shall be able 
to stand the scrutiny of the judgment? 

I have tried to disclose to you the reasonableness and 
the beauty of godliness; you doubtless see and believe it 
remains for you to act. Oh! accept Christ as the^ standard 
of character, seek him, measure yourself by his rule. 
Friends may point the finger at you, but remember you de- 
cide and act for eternit} T . Others may try to persuade you 
to accept their notions, but remember it is character you 
want, not dogma. "Refuse profane and old wives' fables 
and exercise thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exer- 
cise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all 
things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that 
which is to come. 1 ' 



STRENGTH 



Pinally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of 
his might.— Eph., 6, 10. 

The design of the apostle in the epistle to the 
Ephesians seems to have been to manifest the superiority 
of Christianity by comparing it with the religion of the 
guardian goddess of Ephesus. 

By bringing this epistle into review we shall not only 
learn something of the manners and customs of the people, 
but also that the Dianian system of faith was fustian, 
while that of the Gospel is a great moral power in the 
world. 

The first element essential in a system of religious 
faith is the idea of God. All religions must be measured 
according to the perfectness in which this first truth is 
perceived. The Ephesians bowed before the image of 
Diana, and said " great is Diana," " whom all Asia and the 
world worshipeth. ,, And who was Diana? An idol, a mere 
symbol of time, empire, strength, and plenty. From such 



174 



STRENGTH. 



a concept of God there would grow a religion no greater 
than the conceit itself. Where the parent is gross we ex- 
pect to find grossness in the offspring. 

Without throwing himself into antagonism with the 
prevalent opinion with regard to the greatness of Diana, 
Paul, who desired to correct and elevate the Ephesian 
thought of God, taught the new religion to the Ephesians, 
by an allusion to the greatness of Jehovah. Who is he? 
Not a mere symbol, not an idol, but "The One Grod, " ''Our 
Father," " Manifold in Wisdom,' 1 "Rich in Mercy," "Great 
in Love," who planned for the good of his children before 
they were born, before the earth's foundations were laid, 
and hath " blessed us with all spiritual blessing, ,f "in the 
riches of the grace of Jesus Christ. 11 Thus if Diana was 
great, God is infinitely great. According as this Christian 
theology towered above the theology of the Ephesians, it 
produced a purer worship, a better character, a truer man- 
hood. 

The worship, the religious experiences naturally be- 
longing to these two systems of faith, Paul alludes to, for 
the sake of comparison, as being " mystery," a term at 
once understood by the Ephesians. In the first chapter, 
ninth verse, he speaks of God " having made known to us 
the mystery of his will;" in the fourth verse of the third 
chapter he speaks of "knowledge mthe mystery of Christ;' 1 
in the ninth verse of the same chapter, he speaks of mak- 
ing men " see what is the mystery.' 1 

The Dianian " mysteries" consisted of two parts, the 
lesser and the greater; the first was merely a preparation 
for the second. On the first day of the greater mystery the 
novitiate was instructed; on the second day he was com- 
manded to bathe in the sea; on the third, sacrifices and 



STRENGTH. 175 



oblations were offered; on the fourth a procession w;is form- 
ed in honor of the Goddess Ceres; on the fifth he went with 
Ceres in search of Persephone, the lost daughter of the 
goddess,descending with her into Hades,aud returning with 
her to the realm of light; then, having experienced her sor- 
rows and realized her joys, he was rewarded with the privi- 
lege of spending two nights in the temple, the first in the 
sanctum and the second in the sanctum sanctorum, secretly 
closeted with the fair goddess, who taught him myths and 
held high orgies which, on pain of death, he might not di- 
vulge. Such was. in outline, the religious experience that 
pertained to, the votaries of Diana. It may have been im- 
pressive in its ceremonies, a sort of ancient Free Masonry; 
it may have been instructive as a science, and it may have 
been world-wide in its reputation; but that it greatly "sub- 
dued the passions' ' or enhanced the morals of the people is 
seriously questioned. Pindar says " it taught the end and 
the origin of life;" but more, it inspired Pindar to compose 
triumphal odes, peans for processions, songs for the girls, 
dance songs, drink songs, and dirges. Nor did the mystery 
of the Dianian faith prevent its votaries from being dupa- 
ble, untruthful, fickle, profane, proud, arrogant, resentful, 
sensuous, lustful, licentious; "for it is a shame," says Paul, 
"even to speak of those things which are done of them in 
secret." 

Paul does not mention those mysteries particularly, 
but the word " mysterion," called them all up; he does, how- 
ever, offset these experiences with that which is far better; 
one can readily discover the paralels and comparisons which 
the apostle employed, in order to set forth the greater ex- 
cellence, of the glorious truths of the Gospel. Thus he off- 
sets instruction, with "the mystery of the divine will that 
has been made known"; over against the bath in the sea he 
puts " Redemption in the blood of Christ": he covers the 



176 STRENGTH. 



old sacrifices and oblations with the idea of being recon- 
ciled by the cross. Better than heathen processions is the 
walk, so frequently mentioned, the walk which is u not ac- 
cording to the course of this world, but worthy of the vo- 
cation with which we are called, and whereby we endeavor 
to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. ,, 

The search after Persephone is offset by the fact that 
Jesus Christ has come, come to u preach peace, to bring us 
near, to break down the middle wail of partition, therefore, 
we are no more strangers. Christ dwells in our hearts 
by faith 11 ; And .the secret interview in the Temple 
and behind the most sacred veil is. in Christianity com- 
pletely overshadowed by the sweeter, purer thought of 
being made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus, and through him, finding access by one spirit to the 
Father, that we might know the exceeding greatness o c 'his 
power, when he raised Christ from the dead and set him at 
his own right hand in the heavenly places. 

Now, therefore, knowledge of God. redemption from 
the act and the result of sin, reconciliation with the Father, 
propriety and circumspection of conduct, and heart-inti- 
macy with Jesus Christ being the mysteries of godliness, 
that is. the experiences of the Christian; what kind of a 
character should we expect from such holy living and med- 
itation? Not the same as characterized the worshipers of 
Diana; not the spirit that worketh in the children of dis- 
obedience; not darkened understanding; nor alienation 
from the life of God; nor that moral character that is past 
feeling, given over to lasciviousness. and working uuelean- 
liuess with greediness; not such, but a character comporting 
with the blessedness of salvation, and built on faith in God, 
therefore, it will be meek, lowly, truthful, loving, strength- 
ened in the inner man, tender-hearted, kind, forgiving. 
crowned with spiritual blessings and sealed with the Holy 
Ghost. 



STRENGTH. 177 



The ruinous effects of a false faith, has, among no 
people, a more suggestive example, than that afforded by 
the Ephesians; not only the softness oi their climate, but 
their refinements in religion, their very faith in Diana, ed- 
ucated them into luxurious living, and love of pleasure, and 
made them a soft, unmanly and effeminate people. The 
Lydians made an. easy prey of the Ephesians. The Per- 
sians, three years later, swept them with the bosom of 
retribution. After the battle of Mycale they were tossed 
like a shuttlecock into the hands of Athens. The Romans 
literally gave them away to the king of Pergamum; Paul 
therefore suggested to that effeminate people that while 
Dianian voluptuousness was seducing all their manlinessi 
Christianity could transform them into heroes, for he who 
has in him the Spirit of Christ would dare even at the sac- 
rifice of his life, to vindicate his principles, and, with such 
an heroic element, active within him, he would die if need 
be for his native country; Paul therefore exhorts the Ephe- 
sians to put on the whole armor of God, that they might be 
able to stand, stand, having their loins girt about with 
truth; stand, having on the breast-plate of righteousness; 
stand, with their feet shod with the preparation of the 
Gospel of peace; stand, with the shield of faith beating- 
back the fiery darts of the evil one; stand, flourishing the 
sword of the spirit which is the Word of God, and having 
done all, stand. 

Thus we see the trend of the whole epistle to the 
Ephesians; it is an exhortation for weak men to become 
strong ; an argument setting forth the feebleness of heathen- 
ism and the mightiness of the Gospel; a picture presenting 
the futility of the mysteries of Diana, and the glorious ex- 
periences of the Christian ; it is an index finger pointing to 
the weakness of moral character produced by ungodly ideals, 



178 STRENGTH. 

and the beauty and excellence of that life that is quickened 
into activity by the power of the Holy Ghost; in brief the 
epistle to the Ephesians teaches me that, to cherish a heav- 
en-born ambition, to perform a holy mission, to break the 
shackles from a false faith, to extricate a human heart 
from all grossness and wrong, to build the Race up into a 
divine brotherhood, to make this world better, requires a 
Religion and a Faith that has the strength of God in it; 
the Ephesians needed such a Religion, so do we; there is no 
hope for this world in any other; we must be "strong in 
the Lord and in the pcwer of his might. 

The world's great desideratum is strength; it has at 
least no more than it needs. Some things the world has in 
abundance, wealth, for instance. True, many a man is 
poor, life is a constant struggle with poverty; men are poor 
not because there is not enough in the world to supply every 
need, but because it is not in all men to get rich, and some 
are greedily grasping that which belongs to their brothers. 
Again, there are many whose affluence is a curse to them, 
it would do t}x?m good to give a part away; at least, the 
world is rich, there are cattle on the hills, there is fuel in 
the forest, there is gold, in the rock,gold in the ocean, gold 
in the air; if the world were more richly endowed than it 
is, it could not use its riches. 

The world also has trouble enough, at least enough for 
all practical purposes; we are born unto it; it comes to us 
in tender life; it clings to us when the hair grows gray; it 
pales our cheeks, it wrinkles our brows, it breaks our 
hearts, it bows down our proud spirits, it increases with oar 
years, none are exempt; and, it seems that some have a 
great deal more trouble than they can bear; there can be no 
doubt, the world is rich in trouble. 

I say rick because though it may not seem so,yet trouble 
may be a blessing in disguise; it is as much of a blessing as is 



STRENGTH. 179 



night. When trouble or sorrow conies we say, night has 
settled down upon our souls. We think sometimes that night 
is not good, 3'et it is certain that night is a blessing ; it is even 
glorious; we can see a great deal farther in the night than 
we can in the day; if the earth had never known a night; 
if noon had perpetually poured on the earth a flood of 
glory, the blue sky would have been nothing more than a 
canopy; but night came, and with it came the stars, the in- 
visible worlds on high, and all the infinite distances of 
space; thus we can see farther in the night than we can in 
the day; so it is in the night of our trouble; it comes to us 
full of spiritual revelations, and visions of the city out of 
sight, such as could not come in the gala day. Stars of 
hope shine on our night of trouble; vision is clearer in the 
midnight of sorrow than in the noon of joy. I say then the 
world is rich in trouble; we have an abundance of it. 

Besides abundance of wealth, and abundance of trouble 
everybody must confess that sin is abundant enough in the 
world. We have heard it spoken of as being one of the 
ills that flesh is heir to, or, as being a mere misdemeanor, 
and even as being a force helping man to secure his highest 
dignity and destiny. If it is this, only this, and nothing 
more, then the way to destiny is not up, but down, down 
through the lowest degradation, down through the nether- 
most filth and corruption; it is a misdemeanor that smites 
the world with moral death; it is an inherited ill that can 
change this world into a hell, and human hearts into the 
very pandemonium of perdition. It strikes a thoughtful 
soul with terror to see the world of humanity plunged into 
the appalling catastrophe of sin, swept in its fearful whirl, 
and sucked down into its vortex of woe. If you want to 
know why the world is poor, why its crushed and broken 
heart is always bleeding, why humanity is wasting under 
the withering wing of disease; if you want to' know why 



180 STRENGTH. 



great empires have been hurled from their course of glori- 
ous destiny; and, tyranny, despotism, selfishness, misery. 
war and ruin have always and everywhere prevailed, the 
answer to your question is embodied in that one word, sin. 
He is no friend of his race who would add one feather's 
weight to this awful incubus of accumulated and concen- 
trated damnation that is resting down upon the souls of 
men; the world were better by far if somehow this blight- 
ing avalanche might melt away; the world does not need 
sin, but it does need strength to resist its destructive 
power. 

True, the world needs a great many things that it has 
not got, or it needs to appropriate those essential things 
that have been providentially provided; it needs more wis- 
dom, wisdom to husband its forces, wisdom to utilize its 
powers; it needs a wisdom that will prevent the thro wing- 
away of golden opportunities, and a wisdom that will fix its 
eye on the deathless interests of the eternal future. It 
needs more Religion, a Religion that will render it more 
honest, more generous and brotherly. It needs also more 
faith, a faith more reasonable and heavenly, but the worlds 
greatest desideratum, that which it needs most is strength. 
Give us strength and we can wrestle with poverty; give us 
strength and we can carry our burdens and bear our troubles, 
give us strength and we can overcome sin and the evil pas- 
sions and tendencies of our hearts; }'es, give us strength 
and we can pull the sting from death, and throw wide open 
the everlasting gates of gold; we need nothing quite so 
earnestly as we need strength. 

In childhood strength is needed ; in mature life when 
responsibilities multiply, strength is needed ; and in old age 
when sun, moon and stars are darkened, strength is needed. 
But man is naturally weak, no creature is so helpless 
as he, matter is in his way, often he is unable to overcome 



STRENGTH. 181 



it, nay, it bears hini down; the little lark leaps upward 
from the sod, and soars above the cloud, singing its song of 
triumph amid the blaze of morning light, while man is 
dragged down by a clod and chained to this dusty earth. 
Even his mind, great as it is, is unequal to his emergencies ; 
there comes a time when thought must pause, the greatest 
created intelligence has its horizon, and that horizon every- 
where touches the unknown; a few in thought sweep be- 
yond the ken of the multitude, but the masses are perpetu- 
ally confronted with mysteries that they cannot ravel, and 
riddles that they cannot solve. 

Particularly in moral matters does man display his 
feebleness. The inebriate would break away from his 
habits if he could, sober, he resolves for the sake of that 
poor wife whose heart is broken, and for the sake of those 
dear children whose happiness is destroyed, to dash the 
wine cup to the ground; but his trembling hand cannot 
obey his wish, and his moral power, more futile than his 
arm offers no resistance; therefore the waves of inebriacy 
roll over him again; so it is with the best men,' so with 
ministers, so with churches, often their desires are greater 
than their strength; they would save this world all at once 
if they could, but moral power fails them just when they 
need it most. 

The church on the whole has shown itself to be weak; 
almost two thousand years have passed and the world is not 
redeemed yet. There are places on the earth, to-day where 
the foot-stepping of the children of Gfod are never heard; 
even beneath the shadows of its edifices wickedness thrives; 
in no community is the church what it ought to be; sin 
like a flood is pouring over the souls of men and all denom- 
inations combined are too weak to hold it back. Thus 
from the right hand and the left, from front and rear, from 



182 STRENGTH. 



hell beneath, from the heavens above there come voices 
that taunt us with our weakness, [s it not true then that 
the world's great desideratum is strength. 

But the text comes to us in our need, sweetly anssur- 
ing that the world's needed strength is in God. " My 
bretheren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his 
might." As the oak has no strength in itself, but through 
its roots draws it up from the elements of the soil, and 
through its leaves woos it from air, and cloud, and sun- 
shine; as the cannon, though it be a Krupp gun, is feeble 
in itself; as the powder too is harmless until touched with 
fire; and as the great projectile which might force its way 
through the iron mail of a man of war, is useless without 
an impelliug power behind it. So man, if he has any 
strength at all, must find it, not in himself, but without 
him, his strength is from the Lord. 

As evident as is human weakness, so evident is the 
power divine ; God, from the vials of his omnipotence has 
poured strength upon his universe; it is the strength of 
the Almighty that leaps into the soft kernel of the acorn 
grows into an oak, multiplies into a forest, and transforms 
into a fleet of great ships that sweep pirates from the seas, 
and carry the commerce of the world. It is the strength of 
God that enters into those iron bands which form the hot 
ribs and sinews ot the locomotive; it appears also in the wire 
strands which, twisted into cables, support the suspended 
bridges of East River and Niagara. The very hills and 
mountains are fractions of omnipotence. Behemoth is 
strong, "his bones are like pieces of iron; 11 the war-horse 
u rejoiceth in his strength and goeth forth to meet the armed 
men; 11 and "the heart of Leviathan is firm as a stone, hard 
as a piece of the nether mill-stone ;" but whence comes the 
strength of the horse, Behemoth and Leviathan ? It is 
grazed from the grasses, it is drunk from the rivers, it is 



STRENGTH. 183 



drawn from the billows of the sea, it grows on the breasts 
of the mountains, it is poured from the bosom of the storm, 
and dispensed and provided by the mighty hand of God. 
Yes, it is the Lord who balances the worlds upon nothing 
and sends them spinning through space in the journey of 
ages. 

But come with me and I will show you the embodi- 
ment of all strength, not as it is distributed throughout the 
material universe, but as it appears in concentrated form; 
it is in Christ. He said "and I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
all men unto me;" what is this but a declaration of the in- 
finite magnetism of the cross? The apostle said "in him 
dwelleth all the fulness of the Grod-head bodily." What 
does this mean if not that Al mightiness is embodied in 
Jesus? Again, Christ said, "all power is given unto me, in 
Heaven and in earth." But what is this if not the con- 
centration of omnipotence in the Lord Jesus ? The migh- 
tiest forces in this universe are moral forces, and all moral 
force centers in the cross; it were easier to snap the bands 
of gravitation than for human power to stir a stubborn 
will, but the strength of the Lord and the power of his 
might has done it many a time. It was the mere preach- 
ing of Christ, and him crucified, that on the day of Pente- 
cost melted the hearts of three thousand people. And 
there is power in that name to-day to rescue the inebriate, 
to lift the world's most crushing burdens, to scatter dark- 
ness, to destroy sin, to bring to light immortality and 
Heaven. 

Here, then, is reserve power, here is omnipotence 
waiting to be utilized, nay to be appropriated. Is it for 
man? Is it for me? Will the Lord help me in my ex- 
tremity? Can I somehow link my weakness to omnipo- 
tence? Paul seemed to think so, so he said to those Ephe- 
sians, and he says to us, be strong in the Lord and in the 



184 STRENGTH. 



power of his might. I know there is power somewhere. T 
know it has been working, it sustains this world of ours. 
It has been pushing the Church onward to victory. It has 
led her safely through persecutions and inquisitions. I 
know too there is latent power in the Church power 
which has never yet been called into exercise; if she were 
to rise in her strength she could sweep darkness from 
human hearts, and drive the demon of transgression from 
the world. Some day, by some means, those latent energies 
will be quickened, and of a truth "one shall chase a thous- 
and, and two put ten thousand to night. v 

The trouble is that the individuals who compose the 
Church, are. with a few exceptions, disposed to let some 
great work lie undone, unless some one else shall do it. 
We are disposed to leave everything to the Ch.ruch, forget- 
ting that without our effort the Church is nothing. We 
fancy that the church is a great locomotive, steam always 
up, that it is going to pull this world to redemption, and we 
as individuals are nothing but passengers; we pay our fare 
and show our tickets and that is all that is expected of us; 
but what a mistake! The fact is we are all parts, and im- 
portant parts of this great locomotive, and it cannot work 
unless we ourselves are in working trim. The prayer 
meeting is the fire box. the class is the combustion cham- 
ber, each member is a Hue in the boiler, the officiary are the 
steam chests and cylinders, ; he treasury is the sand box, 
the Gospel is the driving wheel, the pulpit is the cab and 
the minister is the alarm bell. Give us divine fire in the 
furnace, water of life in the boiler. Christ for an engineer, 
then, moving on the track of duty, the locomotive will soon 
pull the world out of the mire of sin. and up to the city 
that is out of sight. 

But I repeat it, the Church is weak, and Christians are 
weak individually, because so many aspire to be passive. 



STRENGTH. 185 



uninterested passengers, or because we depend too much 
on earthly forces. Each Christian receives all the power 
he lives for. My nearness to God, my fidelity to duty, my 
purity of character, is the gauge of my strength and the 
measure of my influence. The consecrated soul is strong. 
Even the stammering tongue may speak, the palsied hand 
may work, and the fearful heart may be strong, for success 
in life's moral endeavors depends not on this one's might 
and that one's power, but my spirit saith the Lord. 

There have been in this world of ours, and there are 
now, true hearts and brave, hearts touched by divine power. 
Abraham, strong in faith, abandoned Fatherland looking- 
for the fulfillment of divine promise. Moses, touched as it 
were by divine power, chose to suffer affliction with the 
people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season. Paul and Silas, strong in the strength which God 
supplies, praised him in the Philippian prison. And the 
early Christian Church was aroused by unearthly forces 
when it conceived the plan and endeavored to carry it out 
of preaching the Gospel throughout Asia minor. So well 
was that work done that eleven out of thirteen of the prov- 
inces of Asia minor received the Gospel during the life time 
of the apostles. The whole peninsular indeed was perme- 
ated' with the spirit of the truth as it is in Christ, and it 
stood forth before the thought of men as a fair illustration 
of what even a feeble Church can do if it be strong in the 
Lord and in the power of his might. Paul too was inspired 
by the same power when he resolved to capture for Christ 
the illustrious city of Ephesus; for this purpose he visited 
it, secured a few converts, appointed teachers, labored there 
most earnestly for three years, appointed a pastor, instruc- 
ted the elders and wrote epistles ; nor was he disappointed ; 
he was strong enough to win despite opposition, and by and 
by that royal city, the city of arched aqueducts and tunelled 



186 STRENGTH. 



hills, the city of castles, theaters and monuments, the city 
of the Dianian grove, and of the most splendid temple he- 
came the seat of a Christian sanctuary in which worshipped 
a people who kneeled down and prayed, and wept sore and 
fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all 
for the words which he spake that they should see his face 
no more, "and they accompanied him unto the ship." 

Nor are Scriptural characters the only ones who have 
heen strong in the Lord. Every man who dares to do 
right is in some degree under control of that power. Every 
heroic soul who is ready to stand by what his conscience 
approves, and to die rather than violate a principle. Every 
noble spirit that can say: 

" So close to glory is our dust, 
v So near to God is man, 
When duty whispers low 'thou must,' 
Eeplies, I can." 

is strong m the Lord and the power of his might. The 
sense of duty is divine. There is something superhuman 
in the man who is prompted by that sense. It was that 
which inspired the soul of John Brown when he ''thanked 
God for the privilege of dying for a cause. " It is that 
that touches the courage of the fireman and makes him 
prompt in the most perilous places to sacrifice himself with 
the hope of rescuing another. 

The universe is a vast reservoir of power that has been 
provided by omnipotence himself and all that any true heart 
has to do is to go to the well and draw, it is just as much 
for your need and mine as for a Paul or an Elijah; yea as 
much for you as for the Lord Jesus Christ if only you are 
moved by as holy and as lofty a purpose; Paul caught the 
inspiration of this glorious truth and therefore told the 
Philippians, "My God shall supply all your need, according 



STRENGTH. 187 



to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.' 1 Whatever task 
duty may call you to perform in the Lord is yo ur strength, 
and the facilities that shall enable you to perform it. If 
you want to fill your barns with plenty, the Lord will sup- 
ply the rain, the dew, the sunshine, and the strength for 
your laboring arms; if you desire to build a palace that shall 
rival the Golden House of Nero, you must come to Al- 
mighty God for all the material and the appliances; if you 
you want a factory for the making of fabrics of cotton or 
of silk, come to the Lord's treasure house and appropriate 
whatever of law or of force, or wondrous natural' elabora- 
tion, your craving soul may need. If you want a beauty of 
moral character, with every sin spot washed away, come to 
the Lord and find whatever wisdom, law or grace shall be 
needful to accomplish the work. If great duties are pressing 
you, if noble resolves are breaking into being in the depths 
of your soul, or if fearful conflicts are confronting you, 
come to the Lord and recieve from his hand that strength 
that will render duty, resolution, and battle a success ; there 
is no task too difficult, there is no attainment too great, if 
only the heart is "strong in the Lord and in the power of 
his might." 

But, Alas! There are many failures; fields have 
been worked that yielded no harvest; the other day there 
were sold in Washington, for a song or a six-pence, hun- 
dreds of rejected models, that represented the fruitless toils, 
and the blasted hopes, of many years and many studious 
inventors. Many have gone in search of the golden fleece 
and found nothing but a wild waste of waters; many have 
heartlessly led some forlorn hope; and many have sought 
to enter in at the straight gate and have not been able, but 
why? Why is it that men fail? Why do our best laid 
schemes come to naught, and our fairest prospects fade 



188 STRENGTH. 



away? There can be but one answer to this question, we 
have not always been strong in the Lord and in the power 
of his might; in our ignorance or our wilfulness we have 
pursued some other plan than God's, or we have not fol- 
lowed the trend of eternal law, consequently failure and 
disaster came like a flood upon us. If the time shall ever 
come, that men will learn to acknowledge God in all their 
ways, then he will direct their paths, and they shall never 
be confounded. 

There is nothing in which a sinning world is more apt 
to fail than the manner in which it appropriates divine 
strength for moral ends ; the tendency is to depend on self, 
or on some natural means; and because inadequate forces 
are started into the work, the result is not what was antici- 
pated. There is in this universe, only one thorough and 
radical remedy for sin, that is Christ, he " whom God hath 
set forth to be a propitation, through faith in his blood, to 
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are 
past, through the forbearance of God," " there is no other 
name given among men whereby we must be saved." 

If any other remedy is employed, there may be partial 
success or there may be absolute failure. A man by the 
power of his own will may break away from some or all of* 
his bad habits; by force of culture he may develop a suavity 
dignity and charm of manner; by dint of civil authority and 
power the evil natures of great multitudes may be restrain- 
ed. Still the evil may exist ; under the outside polish there 
may be coarseness and brutality; and though every habit 
that refined society refuses to tolerate should be cast away; 
yet the past is unforgotten, it still stands sadly defaced by 
transgressions of divine law, for which the trangressor 
must be brought to account; and even though you are heart- 
ily sorry for your misdeeds the stain and the guilt of them 



STRENGTH. 189 



remains, you need not only forgiving grace but cleansing 
power; and this is accomplished not by any virtue in your- 
self, not by any law of nature but only through that means 
that God has set forth. So, that, in the salvation of your 
soul, you need to be strong, not only in yourself, but in 
the strength of the Lord and the power of his might. 

A similar mistake is made when we attempt to per- 
suade men to become Christians, we do it in our own 
strength, we fancy that it can be accomplished by the con- 
vincing power of our argument, or by the vivid beauty of 
our description, or by administering to sin-sick souls heroic 
doses of human theology; this man is choking with a bone 
of Calvanism in his throat and some Methodist doctor gives 
him a dose of Arminianism ; that one has stumbled and 
hurt himself over Universalism and we try to heal the 
wound by applying the pungent ointment of God's un- 
changeable justice, and thus we depend on ourselves or on 
human agencies. Oh! when shall we learn that it is not 
by might or by power but by the spirit of the Lord, the 
work can be accomplished, if at all, by a living Gospel that 
has a living Christ in it. We may be good artists and 
draw the most charming pictures, but there is no moving 
cloud, stirring breeze, fluttering leaf, or flowing stream un- 
less God touches it with his life. We may carve statues 
of men, we may say this is a saint and that a sinner, and 
they may stand forth cold as the marble in their beauty un- 
less the breath of life has been breathed into them. Argu- 
ment may be good, reason may be pure, imagination may 
be lofty, and eloquence may be worthy of admiration, but 
" it is the spirit that quickeneth/' Therefore less proud 
and trustful of self, let us seek God more; less vainglorious 
because of our own importance; let us be strong in the 
Lord and the power of his might. 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF 
GOD. 



Many, O Lord, My God, are thy wonderful works which thou 
hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us- ward: they can 
not be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and 
speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.— Psalm 
40, 5. 

This Psalm was composed by David and dedicated to 
the Chief Musician, The first half is a thanksgiving song, 
wherein the author acknowledges the divine goodness in 
deliverance from some great calamity, either personal, na- 
tional, or both, the King being the nations representative, 
and the last half is an expressed resolution of consecration 
to God. 

The king and the people had good reasons for thanks- 
giving and dedication. God had listened to a nation's 
prayer; out of a horrible pit had he rescued them; their feet 
had he placed on a rock and established their goings; and 
so wrought up to ecstacy was the national enthusiasm that 
a new song fell from its lips, even praise to God. 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 191 



Similar expressions of gratitude have been common to 
nearly all nations. The Egyptians had their " annual feast 
of the inundation," a period of general praise and rejoicing 
for the overflowing Nile. The Persian law suffered no man 
to confine the motives of his sacrifices to any private or do- 
mestic interests; so that when from gratitude for favors 
bestowed, any man would dedicate his gifts to the sun god, 
the voice of the empire went up in thanksgiving also. The 
Greeks in celebrating their annual Eleusis, offering prayer 
and gifts to Ceres and Proserpine, simply anticipated us in 
an annual thanksgiving for the ingathered harvest, and the 
Roman Floralia. however it may have been abused had its 
origin in a sense of gratitude for the return of Spring with 
its blossoms and flowers. The Chinese also have their 
u Ying Chun, 1 ' or yearly vernal festival, when with singu- 
lar demonstrations, they render praise to the god of agri- 
culture. The annual jubilee at Peterhoff, is the Russian 
Thanksgiving for the birth and life of the soverigtf, which 
means, in other words, a day of praise for the national ex- 
istence. In most Roman Catholic countries the national 
idea is almost lost in that of the church, the proclamation 
for worship arising from that source rather than from any 
parliamentary enactment. The English have no annual 
Thanksgiving; but on special occasions, as in case of re- 
covery from sickness in the royal family, or at the cessation 
of war, or after a >ignal victory, the nation in some form 
gives expression to its gratitude; but whether the mint, or 
parish bells, or parks of artilery be used to express the 
emotions of a grateful people, all would by them be consid- 
ered empty, unless the sanctuary resounded with praise. 

Dr. Franklin says, that "in a time of great desponden- 
cy among the first settlers of New England, it was proposed 
in one of their assemblies to proclaim a fast; an old farmer 



192 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 



arose, accused them of provoking Heaven with their com- 
plaints, reviewed God's mercies, showed that they had much 
to be thankful for, and moved that instead of appointing a 
fast they appoint a thanksgiving, which was done, and the 
custom has been continued ever since." 

There is no other great nation on earth wherein one 
day in each year is sacredly set apart for thanksgiving by 
the government, in the sense that this republic celebrates 
its annual feast. Independence day is not so emphatically 
a national holiday as this; therefore with inexpressible 
emotion each Christian patriot recognizes this, his country, 
as the most Christian country on the globe. 

This is a Christian country because its laws are found- 
ed on scripture; its judicial oaths are administered on the 
Holy Bible; it legislates in favor of the Christian Sabbath; 
it reckons time from the birth of the Christian Savior, and 
in a sense, places every legal document in the custody of 
Christ; thus in conformity with the common practice Presi- 
dent Arthur concludes his thanksgiving proclamation with 
the words, " Done at the city of Washington, this 25th day 
of October, in the year of our Lord, 1882." 

More, the Christianity of this nation is Protestant. All 
over this broad land to-day, from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific, from the lakes to the gulf, on the mountain and in 
the glen; in the forest and on the prairie; to a hundred 
thousand sanctuaries, whether in private dwelling, school 
house, church, or cathedral, or in God's grander temple, out- 
side, shall go forth twenty-five million protestants, with 
songs of praise on every lip, in loyal submission to a Protes- 
tant President's proclamation, which will be utterly ignored 
by at least three million Roman Catholics; and, they shall 
go forth chanting as they go. "Many, Lord Cod. are thy 
wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 193 

which are to us-ward, they cannot be reckoned up in order 
unto thee, if I would declare and speak of them they are 
more than can be numbered." 

The text suggests as a theme suitable for considera- 
tion the wonderful works of God as manifest in this repub- 
lic. We may therefore meditate on Grod's favors in the 
past, his purposes in regard to the future, and our respons- 
ibility in the premises. 

Two hundred and sixty-two years ago, when mad No- 
vember lashed the fickle Atlantic into fury; a frail bark, 
freighted with a precious burden, might have been seen 
struggling through the fog and tempest, scarcely able to 
live in the swelling sea, but preserved b} 7 prayer, directed 
by faith, sustained by omnipotence. It contained a hun- 
dred Puritan passengers and their melancholy effects, yes 
it contained more, stowed away where human eye could not 
see them, were germs, principles, which for five thousand 
years had been carefully watched and protected by a di- 
vine provideuce: that had been wrested from the revolutions 
of thought, and saved amid the crash and desolations of 
empires; principles they were which in their unfolding 
shall witness the future glory of this Republic. 

Dr. Foster suggests that European, and, of course, 
American civilization, originated in Egypt. I think earlier, 
the cradle of our civilization was rocked by pa- 
triarchal Abraham, beneath a Chaldean sky and amid the 
vine clad hills of Canaan. We inherit from him out con- 
ceptions of Grod; that faith which shall live as long as the 
world lasts; that integrity which would not take from 
another a thread, even to a sandal thong, lest it might be 
said another has made us rich; and that sublime science, 
which more than any other, unfolds to the thinking mind 
the works of omnipotence in all their wondrous beauty. 



194 THE WONDERFUL WOKKS OF GOD. 

Pressed onward as by a divine impulse this prototype 
American found himself at length in Egypt, and subse- 
quently his family were all there, a nation in the bosom of 
a nation, evolving a civilization whose type shall change 
with the changing centuries until gloriously consummated. 
There, amid broad-based pyramids that dipped their apices 
into Heaven, marble Pharaohs that kept silent sentinel 
huge Sphinxes that guarded the dead, temples and statues 
that towered along the plain, and catacombs that were filled 
with clecayless corpses, the principles of that evolving civili- 
zation were crowned with the quality of solidity and per- 
manence. Prom thence came those broad-gauged views 
which to-day characterize the genius of the American re- 
public. 

But this developing civilization must pass into other 
hands; it would have been incomplete had it avoided those 
indented peninsulas which Up between the Adriatic and the 
iEgean, Greece must place her polished hand upon it; 
Egyptian angularities must soften into graceful curves; 
from prosaic plains it must rise to revel in the poetry of a 
varied landscape, where hills melt into valleys, valleys 
swell into mountains, and mountains again leap abruptly 
into peaks, where fountains sport, streams shimmer and 
dance, lakes reflect the blue ot Heaven, and seas charm with 
their ever varying tints Thus the gentle and more poetic 
side of our civilization is directly traceable to Greece. She 
has bequeathed all that elevates and embelishes hum; m life, 
except the inspiring influences of the Gospel, and even for 
that she gave her wondrous language. As another has 
said, a whatever there is of heroic action in human con- 
duct; whatever there is of intensity expressed in the pas- 
sions; whatever there is of poetic diction or oral discourse; 
whatever there is that relates to the beauty of the human 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOB. 195 

form, or the just proportion of human structures as mani- 
fested in sculpture or architecture, we have inherited from 
those Hellenic tribes. 1 ' 

It has been said, and nothing is more evident, that 
"Westward the star of empire takes its way, 1 ' therefore, 
from Greece this civilization of which I speak crossed the 
Adriatic, and in the most ambitious empire the world ever 
knew, and amid the uninterrupted din of arms and shouts 
of victory, where Licinius and Justinian legislated, and the 
Caesars reigned, there the civilization which has given birth 
to our peculiar institutions was run into a new mould to 
come forth with new characteristics. The Roman sword 
was unsheathed for a divine purpose; it sent a life current 
through the veins of the generations. The victories of 
Hannibal, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar. The fall of Carthage, 
Greece, Gaul and Briton in resurrected form live to-day in 
the genius of the American people. Latin poets, Roman 
orators and legislators preside to-day in our schools. The 
Lati's tongue has bequeathed all its beauty to the Saxon 
that we speak. The heroic deeds of Roman legions make 
patriots of us all. Justinian compiled his codes and wrote 
his digests and institutes for our use; and more than all 
Rome waded through bloody seas, humbling mighty na- 
tions in her march, and spread her conquests over the then 
known world, that the world being merged into one em- 
pire, and ruled by one spirit might be the better prepared 
to receive the Gospel and confer its benedictions on nations 
yet to live; that Gospel also is ours. 

But Rome met its dissolution. Luxury at last made 
the Roman warrior a prey for the barbarian. Just across 
the Alps there lived several semi-savage Teutonic tribes; 
these were divinely chosen to be the almoners to the new 
world of the God-given civilization' which had been devel- 
oping for thousands of years. Side by side with these had 



196 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 



been the Celts, but the Teutons had driven them westward 
or held them in submission in southern Europe. The Celt 
is ceremonious, and readily submits to a supposed superior, 
and was never cut out to be a Yankee. On the contrary, 
the Teuton is independent, thinks for and governs himself, 
and is much better suited for the temperate than the torrid 
zone. To those two races God gave the subjugation of a 
hemisphere. Was it chance or was it Providence that 
caused Pinzon in 1492 to follow a flock of parrots, which re- 
sulted in turning the tide of Celtic emigration to the West 
Indes and South America, and left North America to be 
settled by the Teutons? I believe it was divinely ordained, 
at any rate the unwavering industry, the sharp intelligence, 
the rugged independence of the Teuton has built up in the 
North the best political system ever devised, and given to 
the world the best government the sun ever shown upon 

Thus our North American civilization has been a plant 
of slow but solid growth. Gathered up from so many 
sources, through so many centuries, cradled among the 
eternal pyramids, schooled amid aesthectic culture, trained 
in Roman senates, developed into a mastery of manhood, 
breathed upon by the spirit of Puritan devotion, cemented 
by Christian love and overshadowed by the wings of the 
Almighty. Is it not evident that the hand of God has been 
in its glorious unfolding? Surely every Christian patriot 
can say, " many, Lord God, are the wonderful works that 
thou hast done. 11 

Guarded thus amid the conflicts and changes of cen- 
turies, we should expect that the same Providence would 
clear the way and defend it in the strange land whither it 
had been brought. Indeed, in nothing is the divine ap- 
probation of this republic more clearly seen than in its 
history. Through a series of difficulties apparently insup- 
erable has the new world civilization pressed its way. Nor 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 197 



could those difficulties have been overcome had not Jehovah, 
who declared " I will bring the blind by a way they know 
not, I will lead them in paths they have not known, I will 
make darkness light before them and crooked things 
straight, these things will I do unto them and not forsake 
them/ 1 exerted his omnipotence to move or moderate every 
obstruction and render the national progress possible. 

This Providence was manifest in the very outset. Thus 
at the time of the European occupation of that part of 
North America now known as the United States, there was 
a population of three hundred thousand aborigines, about 
the same number as to-day dwell on the slopes of the 
great Mississippi. They were a race of savages, every man 
of which required a whole empire for a hunting ground, 
and the liberty of a continent to accomodate his roving 
fancy; their smile was a growl, their laughter the scream- 
ing war-hoop, their delight the reeking scalp, their scepter 
the barbarous tomahawk. There is scarcely a State or a 
territory where the blood of the white man has not been 
shed by those barbarians. Money enough has been spent 
by Indian wars and treaties to cancel the national debt. 
With our abundant wealth, our teeming population, un- 
questioned prowess, heroic soldiery, military science and su- 
perior genius, we have not been able fully to subdue the 
red man. Fifty million Europeans barely manage to keep 
three hundred thousand aborigines at bay. What then 
could the American colonies have done in their weakness, 
their poverty, their lowly and despised condition, 
with odds so fearfully against them, had not super- 
human power interposed in their behalf? I claim therefore 
a Providence in the constant feuds that existed among the 
aboriginal tribes; in the jealousies that divided into helpless 



108 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 



factious a formidable host of barbarians, and rendered them 
more deserving of the sympathy than the sword of the col- 
onists. [ claim that Providence too in the yellow plague, 
which before the lauding of the Pilgrims, had swept away. 
as with the besom of destruction, at least nine-tenths of 
the savages who lived where the white man's dwelling was 
destined to be. This is not harsh or ungenerous, it is but 
the outworking of that now generally recognized law "the 
survival of the fittest. 11 It simply teaches that God will 
push his purposes through avenues the most appropriate to 
reach the greatest good to the greatest number. There is 
no alternative, savagery and sin must give way before civil- 
ization and righteousness. If our civilization is the fittest 
it will survive. God will clear the way. We need not be 
in haste to exterminate our opponents. 

But again, if the hand of Providence restrained the 
savage, that hand was equally as evident in the circum- 
stances which rendered possible the early independence of 
the nation. Let us not be too vainglorious, the liberty of 
law. the excellence of republican institutions, the glory of 
a great empire which we now enjoy were not gotten alto- 
gether by the valor of our arms. It may be humiliating, 
it is true nevertheless, the paw of the lion could have 
crushed out the life of the thirteen struggling colonies had 
not God himself interposed. He u covered our defenseless 
heads with the shadow of his wing, 11 and the lion withdrew 
to more inviting resorts. While we were throwing off the 
yoke of England, England was subduing the world. The 
eighteenth century opened with a war between England, 
Germany and Holland on one side, and France and Spain 
on the other. It was a fearful war of races in which the 
Teuton from Bleinhim, Gibraltar, Ramillies, Oudenarde 
and Malplaquet came forth as the conquerer of the Celt. In 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 199 

the middle of the century England assumed the quarrel of 
Maria Theressa, and having pushed her couquest into 
South America, returned with thirty-two wagon loads of 
gold. On the heels of this followed the seven-years' war, 
which involved the whole of Europe, but from which Eng- 
land came forfli with Canada added to her domain. 

Already British power in India had commenced; but 
when the war of .independence raged, it required more than 
common sagacity to secure that which her valor had won. 
This, then, was the opportune moment u to proclaim lib- 
erty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants 
thereof. 1 ' When the British shield hung over Canada, her 
sword lay on the head of France, her guns on the bosom 
of Spain ; when with one hand she held the scepter of Scot- 
land, and with the other petted the passions of Russia; 
when the great heart of the English people, whatever may 
have been the ambition of her lords, beat in sincerest sym- 
pathy for the oppressed colonists in America, and Avhen 
British eyes were fastened on India's mountains, glittering 
with gems, and her rivers rolling over sands of gold; then 
was the time to strike, and strike we did; but (rod gave the 
opportunity, God gave the courage and the strength for the 
blow, and God gave the victory. 

Now, the smoke of the battle having cleared away, 
each antagonist can well afford to be magnanimous. There 
was providence for England in her defeat, as much as for 
us in our triumph. We fought and from fields of blood 
came forth bearing the laurels of a nation's liberties. Eng- 
land fought but lost one empire to win another. We 
turned westward to subdue a hemisphere and spread a Chris- 
tian civilization; England eastward, peradventure to subju- 
gate the other hemisphere, and certainty to redeem the 
Orient for Christ. We shall meet again by and by, both 
battle-flags shall blend their colors in the breeze, and when 



200 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 



the circuit of the world has been made, when the smoke of 
battle has rolled away, and the knowledge of the Lord 
covers the earth as the waters the sea, we shall meet and 
embrace each other. 

'' Above all pain, all p ission t.nd all pride; 
Above the reach of flattery's baleful breath, 
The lust of lucre and the dread of death," 

and confess, "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," 

But again, God has so overruled events as at length to 
break every fetter and liberate erery bondman. The great- 
est question that ever agitated American politics was pro- 
posed in 1620 when the Dutch landed a cargo of negroes 
in Jamestown, in Virginia, and which was not finally 
answered until that period between 1861 and j865, and 
answered by an appeal to arms. It was the question which 
created the Missouri compromise, the question that provoked 
a content between the slaveholders and their opponents at 
the time of the annexation of Texas; the question which 
passed the fugitive slave act, the question that inaugurated 
civil war when Nebraska and Kansas were admitted, that 
fearful questiou which inflamed secession, bathed the na- 
tion in blood, and cost a billion of dollars. It was a ques- 
tion of no small importance that could command in its 
support the prestige of centuries, the precedents of nations: 
a million and a half bales of cotton every year, half the 
money and half the brain and muscle of this great repub- 
lic. It was a fearful question which could command a 
million armed men to the field, repair for years the waste 
of battle and of pestilence, send to sea an iron -clad navy 
unmatched in history, unknown in the world's wildest 
dreams before, and mark out a track of grim dessolation, 
where avenging deities might pass, thousands of miles in 
length. Yet the destiny of this vexed question, of slavery, 
was settled years before the civil war broke out. Manassas, 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 201 



Fredricksburg, Murfreesboro, Chancelorville, Corinth, 
Chickamauga, Petersburg, Richmond, nor all the sanguin- 
ary .scenes of the South decided this question; these were 
but the death throes of a gigantic enemy which had re- 
ceived its mortal thrust six decades before. God himself 
answered this question when he proposed to enthrone a na- 
tion on this continent that should in all future time be an 
asylum for the oppressed of all peoples, for, as the lamented 
Sumner said. "Aloft on the throne of God, and not below, 
in the footprints of a trampling multitude are the sacred 
rules of right, which no majorities can displace or ovex- 
throw." 

On the eleventh day of July, 1787, according to 
Dr. Fo>ter. when congress passed an ordinance for 
the government of that territory which lies to 
the north and west of the Ohio river, God himself 
interposed to erase the foul blot of slavery from our 
fair escutcheon. By that act that territory was devoted to 
freedom; but it was an unclaimed wilderness, unknown by 
the white man. inhabited only by savages. Then Ohio, 
Indiana. Illinois. Michigan and Wisconsin, which are em- 
braced in that territory, had not been created into States , 
The unbroken sod. the tall pine shivering in the storm, the 
copper and the silver undisturbed and unseen, the breeze 
seldom apprehended by a sail, made no prophesy whatever 
of the future. Old Dominion, genial Kentucky, the rich 
pastures of Tennessee, and all the Sunny South presented 
to the emigrant more alluring promises. The astute states- 
men of the South were perfectly willing that the North- 
west should be free, if they might only enjoy the sweet 
privilege of propagating undisturbed their darling doctrine 
south of the Ohio. Soon, however, a God-directed torrent 
of emigration began pouring into this vast region. Since 
1787 the immigration hither has been twofold greater than 



202 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 

any other section except the Pacific slope. The sentiment 
of those hardy peoples in the log cabins turned the tide of 
political controversy; that sentiment ever deepening, ex- 
panding, prevented slavery from infringing on the given 
boundary; that territory rapidly developed into five sturdy 
States, populated by seven million free and independe nt 
people; they were all educated to believe that industry is 
honorable, and that all men are free and equal born, and 
when the appeal to arms was made, true to Union and to 
liberty, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin 
contributed the force which, in the providence of God, 
broke the power of the rebellion, and bequeathed to us a 
free country, where the clanking chains of slavery and the 
groans of the bondman are heard no more. Thus God 
waits the evolutions of centuries, wins by the might of 
principle, and causes the wrath of men to praise him. And 
when we think of that unseen power which has preserved 
principle, despite the press of centuries, the crush ot em- 
pires, the swell of seas, the tumults of savages, the envy 
of kings, the jealousies of factions, and gave it to us 
crowned with the diadem of freedom, we are ready to ex- 
claim, " many, Lord, are thy wonderful works and thy 
thoughts to us-ward, they are more than can be num- 
bered.', 

So proud was the old psalmist that he said " Walk 
about Zion, and go round about her, tell the towers thereof, 
mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye 
may tell it to the generations following." So for the glory 
of God let us consider our country, go round about her, 
mark well her greatness and her grandeur, let us see what 
kind of an asylum God has provided for republicani : "i and 
freedom. 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 203 

Ancient Greece had a sea-coast of about fifteen hun- 
dred miles. This made Greece and tempted her populations 
to maritime pursuits, but God has given to the United 
States an indented shore ot five thousand miles, where two 
mighty oceans roll up their perpetual surge. If the iEgean 
and the Ionian seas made the Hellenes, the Atlantic and 
the Pacific oceans must create for us three times the glory 
of the renowned people of Hellas. The area of the Ro- 
man empire at the period of her greatest glory was proba- 
bly less than 3,000,000 square miles. She had then been 
fighting for nearly a thousand years. Not including Alaska 
the area of our country is about 3,000,000, and as yet as a 
nation we have seen only a little more than the first cen- 
tury of existence. Our mountains are among the tallest, 
our lakes are the greatest, our rivers are the longest in the 
world; and as Douglas Gerald said, u the richness of our 
soil is such as to need but to be tickled with a hoe in order 
to make it laugh with a harvest." We have always grain 
enough on hand to fill the nation's mouths for a full de- 
cade, despite chinchbug and grasshopper. There is beef 
enough on the plains which any man can have for the get- 
ting, and there is cotton enough in the' South to keep a 
constant humming in the gin. and fuel enough in the 
forest and the mine for a thousand years to come. 

Follow the sun as he rises fresh from his Atlantic bed 
to run his swift race of three thousand miles, and his beam 
will flash upon thickly populated states and rapidly devel- 
oping territories, each great enough to be an empire of 
itself; and as he advances westward from Maine to Califor- 
nia. p3netrating deep valleys, spanning a hundred rivers, 
climbing everlasting hills, reflecting from eternal snows, 
flashing over impenetrable forests, expanding the beauty 
of a floral empire, ripening the grain of a million harvest 



204 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OE GOD. 

fields, painting the blush of unnumbered orchards, tassel- 
ing the cornfields of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, smiling on 
the sloping plains of Nebraska, beaming on the minerals 
of Colorado, playing in the garden of Utah, discovering 
the gold of Nevada and California, and awakening the 
gigantic industries of 50,000,000 free and independent peo- 
ple, and you have some idea of what God is doing every 
day for this great and happy land. 



Or commencing, if you please, where the Aurora 
Borealis, behind pyramids of ice, suspends its gorgeous 
drapery, and crossing the country from i north to south 
pursue your way to where the little coral is busy annexing 
Cuba to the United States, and you will surely confess "the 
lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places, yea we have a 
goodly heritage/' Leaving frost-made palaces where mosses 
seem to be placed for fairy feet, you will press your way 
through long zones of fir and forests of pine; through ter- 
races of climbing ivy and parks of royal oak, and graceful 
chestnut avenues to where, in evergreen woods flourish the 
myrtle and the orange. Your heart will swell with inspi- 
ration amid the picturesque hills of the Hudson, tremble in 
amazement beneath Niagara's thundering flood ; wonder at 
the towering monarchs of Marripos a, go into ecstacy over 
the beauties of Yosemite, and find refreshment in a luscious 
bunch of grapes that weigh a dozen pounds. But mark 
you, these magnificent boundaries, this lavishment of 
wealth, this abundance of beauty, belong to our country, 
they are parts of God's great gift to the American people. 
Surely we have cause for thanksgiving. 

There are to be sure many special reasons for thanks- 
giving besides those general ones to which attention has 
been called. One might, for instance, enlarge on the fact 
that no invader has landed on our shores during the past 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 205 

year; that civil war has not disturbed our domestic tranquil- 
ity; pestilences have not terrified us; that the nation lias 
grown stronger while sharing with the whole world its im- 
munities and privileges; that our industries have been pros- 
pered, our harvests abundant; that our schools still thrive, 
and our religion is still a quickening force in the conscience 
of the nation. Blessings have also come to this particular 
community to which reference might be made, as our new 
railroad facilities, our improved streets, our increased indus- 
tries, each of which tell of the general prosperity of our 
beautiful city. And certainly each individual, as he looks 
over the past year, though trials may have come to him and 
sorrow may have swept over his soul, can see in a thousand 
instances that his Heavenly Father has protected and 
blessed him, even making "bridges of his broken hopes, and 
rayinbows of his tears/ 1 But I have preferred to take a 
broader view, showing that we possess these minor bless- 
ings because of the greater; the all-covering ones of coun- 
try, God and Christ. 

It is said that disintegrating elements are already in 
our midst; that foreign drift floating in upon us from every 
quarter will produce heterogeneity ; that constant tendencies 
to centralization will transform at length the republic into 
a monarch}^; that this nation mast be crushed at last by 
its own weight, and that a variety of climate, such as we 
have will eventually divide the country into conflicting 
sections. Now we have nothing to fear from immigration, 
immigration has made us, we are a nation of foreigners; Euro- 
peans and Asiatics come here to build our railroads and 
develop our resources; it is imperative, however, that they 

be confronted, not with that fawning, craven spirit which 
for the sake of a vote would surrender a principle, but with 
that sterling public virtue which demands the continuance 
and defends the honor of those peculiar institutions for 
which our fathers fought and died. 



206 THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 

The greatest danger threatening the nation to-day is 
its monopolies, those powerful combinations which make 
laws tor their own interests, and having no conscience, 
knowing no government, ignore every statute that does not 
pour the public funds into their own treasuries. Individual 
and corporate enterprises must be encouraged, but woe 
betide the day when the iron heel of monopoly is on the 
neck of the nation. American liberty will not be properly 
guarded until Uncle Sam himself becomes a rival to every 
powerful monopoly. 

It is estimated that at the close of the present century 
there will be in this country a population of a hundred mil- 
lion souls. It is a favorite question with statesmen, " how 
can so many be kept peaceful and happy under one form of 
government?" China has solved the problem by putting a 
premium on education. But China, with her 300,000,000 
could better afford to be ignorant than can America with 
her fifty million. Monarchies may venture to repose learn- 
ing in the custody of a chosen few, but republics must ed- 
ucate the masses, for the ballot in the hands of an illiterate 
multitude who are controlled by a corrupt and educated 
few, is as some one has said, the torch of the political in- 
cendiary, but with intelligence it is the bulwark of liberty. 

Climate may indeed have something to do with the 
formation of an opinion, and particular zones may giv e 
force to conflicting ideas; but it is evident destiny is shaped 
by other forces than local surroundings. The Nile did not 
make Egypt, Italy did not make the ancient Roman, or 
there would be an Egypt and a Rome to-day. The problem 
of national history is a problem of right and wrong. God 
is in it, that survives which is most in harmony with divine 
will, therefore the greatest responsibility resting upon this 
republic is that which rises from a worshipful recognition 
of God. 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 207 

Brothers, as we love our coutry and would bequeathits 
principles to generations yet unborn, I protest the recog- 
nized freedom of the press may never be infringed. The 
public schools shall never be surrendered. Every child 
must have the best legacy his country can give, a good edu- 
cation. Then, given an intelligent, independent, honest, 
God-confiding people, with a government built on eternal 
justice, and no invader shall intimidate, no despot rule, no 
weight can crush them, the problem of self-government 
shall have been solved, and. democratic principles radiating 
from a nation sanctified by the cross, it shall come to pass 
the world will recognize no king but God, and the Church 
no bishop but Christ. 

The future of this republic, as foreshadowed by the 
past, is pregnant with uiiequaled glory. No other nation 
has impearled in its foundations such precious and imper- 
ishable principles. No other is so magnanimous. No other 
people possess so many potent elements in one grand com- 
bination. The very blood mixture so common in this 
country is prophetic of a superior type of physical and in- 
tellectual manhood. By ties of consanguinity the whole 
world is ours. Whatever is good or great in the blood of 
other people flows in our veins. We have the valor of the 
Briton, the brilliancy of the French, the solidity of the 
German, the breadth of the Russian, the beauty of the 
Italian. Indeed we have more good in our institutions than 
ever was in any other nation: the good is always more per- 
sistent than the evil, so we believe that in the providence 
of God, the good of our civilization must outlast the bosoms 
and the centuries that cherish it. On this continent God's 
purpose in regard to humanity must be consummated. 

Let us live worthy of so great a country and so prom- 
ising a future, Particularly let us live to the honor of that 



208 



THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. 



divine one whose wonderful thoughts are continually to- 
ward us. From this place of worship where we. have 
united in thanksgiving, let us repair to our several hearth- 
stones, enjoy the festivities that may be provided, and with 
hearts full of gratitude to Almighty Grod, let us do as the 
President suggests. ' L make this day a special occasion for 
deeds of kindness and charity to the suffering and the 
needy, 1 ' so that under the sunshine of your Christian sym- 
pathy "all who dwell in the land may rejoice in this season 
of thanksgiving. 1 ' 

Note — The above sermon was first preached in Geneva, 
Wis , Thanksgiving day 1870, and has been repeated with little 
alteration on several similar occasions since. Each time it was 
preached its publication was invited. It is the author's contri- 
bution to the first centennial of American independence. The 
author also desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Fos- 
ter for certain facts and suggestions. 



^-f- 




SHORT BEDS AND NARROW 
COVERLETS. 



For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; 
and the covering- narrower than that he can wrap himself in 
it. —Isaiali 28, 20. 

Isaiah, a Judean prophet, began with this chapter a 
new section of his prophecy, and aimed his shaft at the 
Ten Tribes, proclaiming a prediction that had reference to 
the invasion of Samaria by Shalmanezer. 

The Samaritans prided themselves in the beauty of 
their country and the strength of their citadel. They 
deemed themselves able to resist the invader whenever he 
should appear. 

The prophet however faithfully declared to Israel that 
Shalmanezer would surely come, and be divinely commis- 
sioned to perform his work; that he should be strong as a 
tempest of hail, fierce as a destroying storm, that he should 
spread over the land like a flood of mighty waters, and 
sweep away every refuge of lies, dashing the crown of 
pride to earth, trampling the Ephraimite under foot, and 



210 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

plucking the citadel of Samaria, eagerly as a man might 
pluck and eat the first ripe fig of summer. Thus their 
very strength was insufficient, like a bed too short or a cov- 
ering too narrow. 

The Samaritans were as immoral and superstitious ;is 
they were haughty and self-confideut; iniquity prevailed, 
and even the priest and the prophet were sensuous and 
vulgar; their vices made them willing to embrace foolish 
fancies. They believed that they had made a covenant 
with death ; that is they imagined that by their sorceries 
and divinations they could charm death away, and declared 
that they had made, probably by offering sacrifices to 
demons, an agreement with Hell, or Hades, the place of 
disembodied spirits. 

Again, the prophet rebukes this Ephraimitish magic 
and witchcraft; he declares that the covenant should be 
disannulled and the agreement should not stand; that de- 
spite their fancied alliance with death and Hell, Shalmane- 
zer should come and smite them with a fearful slaughter, 
and this should be God's answer to their wickedness and 
blasphemous superstitions. Their vain conceits and idle 
credulousness were a bed that is shorter than a man can 
stretch himself on it, and a covering narrower than a in an 
can wrap himself in it. 

The prophet however did not neglect to declare on 
what conditions the Samaritan people might be secure; the 
conditions were that they should accept no earthly thing, 
but the Lord of hosts as their crown of glory; that they 
should look to him, not to themselves, for judgment in 
government, and for succor in trial, and that they should 
build character not on superstition, but on Christ, whom 
God hath set in Zion for a corner stone. 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 211 

This paragraph in the history of Israel might easily 
be inserted in the record of our own time. Multitudes are 
to-day engrossed in the things of sense; hundreds and 
thousands err through strong drink; many have turned 
away from Zion and Christ; strong delusions are embraced 
under the sounding name of science, and men live, indiffer- 
ent of the eternal future, as though they had compromised 
with death and Hell; but as in the old time so in this. 
There is no promise for the people who forget God; the 
world's surest refuge is Jesus Christ, 

Taking for our theme short beds and narrow coverlets, 
let us look at the insufficiency of human devices in supply- 
ing the needs of immortal souls. We may observe then 
that 

I. THE SOUL REQUIRES A PERFECT REFUGE. 

A variety of opinions have obtained in regard to what 
is the essence or substance of the soul. What is it '? has 
been a favorite question among speculative philosophers. 
One answers, the soul is potential life; another that it is 
subtle air. The stoics maintained that the soul is a flame 
of Heavenly light; another declares that soul is thought. 
It is something in me, said Fichte. The soul, says another 
is the focus in which flow the movements of bodily life. 

- It matters not what name may be given to the sub- 
stance of the soul, or how its nature may be defined; it is 
enough that there is such an existence, that every man is 
possessed of a soul. Whatever else it may be, your soul is 
your inner, your superior self. It is the essence of life. It 
is the whole of man. It is man crowned with his [eternal 
possibility. 

Accordiug to the declaration of Scripture, the soul 
came from Cod, not as the body came from the hand of the 



212 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

skilful Creator, but in a more intimate sense, even as the 
breath comes from the seat of life; the soul is a respiration 
from the bosom of eternal being. God breathed and man 
became a living soul. 

The pre-existence of the soul therefore does not con- 
sist in its having lived in the body of a beast, bird, fish, or 
reptile; there is nothing more degrading to human dignity, 
than this last born of scientific speculation; but it consists 
in its having been in the bosom of the Father. Each hu- 
man soul is a drop of life from the fountain of infinite be- 
ing; it has something of the infinite in it, and with its in- 
dividuality, gotten in the present world, when the body 
shall return to its mother dust, " the spirit shall return to 
God who gave it." 

Because your soul is divine in its essence it is quick 
with Heavenly aspirations. It causes the mind to look out- 
wardly toward realms that are yet undiscovered. It makes 
men eager for excellence. It causes human nature to shud- 
der at the thought of annihilation. It incites all men to 
inquire if a man die shall he live again? And when this 
feverish life is over shall we bathe our weary souls in the 
crystal river that flows from the throne of God ? 

Each human soul is the architect of its own destiny. 
Destiny did not come with creation. The soul was not put 
on top of its possibilities, like a statue on a column, but at 
the base, and required to win for itself an upward way. 
We each work out our own salvation, the facilities are in 
our hands, we cherish in ourselves an upward or a down- 
ward tendency, we win for ourselves crowns of glory or 
chains of darkness; from the moral self-hood of the present 
will grow the moral character of the future; the experiences 
of each new day add new feakires to destiny; it doth not 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 213 

yet appear what we shall he; to what we achieve to-day 
may he added the glory of another achieving to-morrow, or 
the neglect of the present hour may deepen the degradation 
of the next. It is indeed a fearful responsibility, but such 
is that which Grod has put upon each deathless soul. 

It is an important question, how can the soul's eternal 
interests best be secured ? Surely it were net enough sim- 
ply to live, the beast lives, the basest reptile lives, the in- 
significant insect lives. It is not enough to stand in statu 
quo, to be forever what you are. Your inner self-hood 
must be in a condition of advancement, growing better, 
nobler, grander, each day, each year, forever. It is not 
enough to hope, hope is sometimes a fruitless and blossom- 
less exotic, it is groundless and delusive unless rooted in 
the expanding powers of your own moral being. What will 
secure this growth, this approach to the infinite life of 
Infinite, One? This question demands and deserves the 
candid consideration of every thoughtful person. One 
would desire to entrust the cultivation of the mind of his 
child to the best teacher; he would seek, in sickness, the 
most skilful physician; he would not purchase a policy of 
insurance on his house from a company of whose reliability 
he was uncertain; he would not feed his horse with sub- 
stance that might do him harm; ordinarily, men are care- 
ful of their children, of their houses, of their horses; can 
they be careless about their souls? Dare they leave the 
unfolding ot spiritual destiny to influences that might de- 
grade and damn forever? Is any one so foolish as to at- 
tempt to rock it to sleep in a bed that is too short or hide it 



214 SHORT REDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

with coverings that are far too narrow? Rather would not 
every wise man adopt the language of the poet and say: 

" Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past, 
Let each new temple nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from Heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free; 
Leaving thy out-grown shell by life's unresting sea.'' 



II. HUMAN EXPEDIENTS ARE INSUFFICIENT TO MEET THE 
NECESSITIES OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL. 

1. Atheism is insufficient. The idea of God is the 
birthright of humanity; it is co-eval with the race. Men 
have endeavored to persuade themselves that if they could 
only believe there is no God, then, free from moral restraint 
and responsibility, they would be happy, but the heart of 
man refuses to believe it. 

God is a necessary thought in the mind. The soul 
rises instinctively from things to the cause and crown of 
things. Thus, we see beauty, and ascend intuitively to the 
supremely beautiful, perceive thought and rise to the abso- 
lutely thoughtful; observe goodness and think at once of 
perfect goodness; or discover personality and are made to 
meditate on the Supreme one. We see a universe in which 
beauty, thought, goodness, being are manifest, and ascend 
by faith, or by intuition, to an absolute, an Infinite Being 
in whom all these qualities exist, as belonging to him and 
complete in him, and this being we call God. 

It is impossible to obliterate this thought of God. The 
mind cannot rest short of the perfect, the absolute, the 
Infinite Unit. The fool may say in his heart there is no 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 215 

God. But this very profession is the proof that he is a 
simpleton, because he asserts a contradiction; he has the 
idea of God in hi in, an idea that has been the common 
inheritance of the race, yet he denies the subject to which 
his highest inborn ideal applies. He must blot out his 
thought of God before he can declare there is no God; but 
this he cannot do, hence his negation is absurd, and his 
atheism is a wild chimera in the brain of a fool. 

But suppose you demonstrate that there is no God; 
that all the arguments that set forth his existence are 
nothing but the meaningless harrangues of so many popin- 
jays; that the universe is the product of chance; that 
there is no moral law because there is no moral govern- 
ment, and that there is no restraint because there is no 
amenability, and then you try to put yourself to bed 
with that idea, could you rest? 

With moral principle dead and buried, with intuition 
and reason utterly confounded, with deity the sole source 
of inspiration and hope swept forever away, with the 
foundations fallen out of things, with your soul plunged 
into fearful and eternal orphanhood without defense or 
dependence, though responsibility were gone, you could not 
rest, for anxiety and perplexity would be multiplied a 
thousand fold. The soul is immeasurably greater than this 
bewildering negation of God. The bed is shorter than a 
man can stretch himself on it. 

2. Materialism is insufficient. What is materialism? 
It is the philosophy of dirt; that which attempts to reduce 
man to the condition of a mere animal, and would make 
his thought, his emotion, his will, nothing but the result of 
his material organization, a mere " dust heap 11 that the first 
breath of mortality will sweep away. Such a philosophy 
is utterly insufficient for the wants of a human soul. If I 



216 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

am the descendent ot a zoophite, the great grandson of an 
orangoutang, the latest development of evolution, how mean 
are all my antecedents and. what assurance have I that 
evolution will not cease and involution begin? Who 
knows but man, having reached the end of his possibility, 
will shrink away from his attainments, the light fade from 
his intellect, the facial angle become more and more acute, 
his smile transform into a chattering grin, his body turn 
into the body of a fish, and finally dissolve into a bowlful 
of protoplasmic jelly? Then, how hopeless are my pros- 
pects ! Nor is this an idle fancy, there is just as much 
probability that men will degenerate into fish as that fish 
have developed into men. Can such philosophy make hu- 
manity any less gross, or the world any more moral ? Can 
it afford courage to a broken heart, or nerve the soul to 
stand for the right? On the contrary, does it not give free 
scope to passion, and make men believe that they are mere 
puppets, the results of their organization, doing only what 
nature dictates shall be done. Atheism is bad enough, it 
sweeps from human hope the Infinite; but materialism robs 
being of God and dignity also; it degrades man to the 
baseness of the brute, and the littleness of an atom. 

I think it is generally conceded that however much of 
thought and fancy, and perhaps of curious fact, there may 
be in the isms and philosophies of to-day. there is but little 
moral life. A materialist, however anchored to his opinions 
he may be. would look beyond his ism or his philosophy to 
find for his son the vital essence of character. There is 
nothing in a doctrine of dirt that teaches man what is 
right and what is wrong. 

Materialism, for aught I know, may be the base of 
modern science; possibly it has discovered for the world 
many important facts; those facts may be most helpful to 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 217 

men; but with all the discoveries of science, from the won- 
ders of chemistry to the marvelous harmonies of the stars, 
materialism is a bed too short for a human soul to stretch 
itself upon, if, after all, it makes man a mere dissolving- 
atom in the universe, his love and reverence a simple thing 
ot sense, and moral principle nothing but an accident in 
the evolutions of the cosmos. There is not a soul however 
degraded or exalted, but longs for something infinitely 
better than materialism can afford it, 

3. The dogma of <hst ruction is insufficient. There is 
a philosophy extaut to-day which would excide from human 
thought all promise of a future state. It consigns to the 
grave all your capacity for knowledge, all your busy brain 
has wrought, all your ardent heart has wished, and all your 
generous hand has done. It answers your anxious inquiry 
if a man die shall he live again, with a cold and cruel, no! 
and leaves body, brain, mind, love and soul to rot in the 
foetid arms of death. Is this the stake to which a soul can 
fasten itself and be satisfied, that soul which like an 
anchored ship is restless to break its chain and plow the 
waters of unknown seas? 

There is not a native instinct in the human heart but 
declares that life must conquer death. Even justice is given 
a voice and proclaims that a future life is imperative. The 
soul shudders at the bare thought of destruction. The 
present is undesirable if there is no hereafter. Every un- 
developed power of the mind cries for a continuance of be- 
ing. To what purpose is all this battling for the right if 
there is nothing beyond? Man is an enigma to himself if 
this fleeting life is the whole of existence. No future! the 
thought is too mean for a man to entertain for a moment. 
The soul cannot stretch itself on the procrustean bedstead 
ot annihilation. It refuses to lie down and be chopped off 



218 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

just to accommodate a dogma that is at war with every 
possibility and assurance of being. A. man must first ignore 
his own dignity before he can crawl through this little 
knot-hole of destruction. 

4. Rationalism is insufficient. Rationalism is the 
attempt of reason to be religious without the aid of Chris- 
tianity. 

Its religiousness is manifest in that it advocates equal- 
ity, fraternity, peace, benevolence, freedom, and the world- 
wide dissemination of moral principle. Rationalism how- 
ever teaches that whatever cannot be understood must be 
rejected; the supernatural in the Holy Scriptures, it is 
claimed, cannot be understood, therefore inspiration, 
prophecy, miracles must be rejected and nothing of the 
Bible accepted save the plainest historic statements and the 
simplest moral declarations. 

Rationalism therefore is an effort of the mind to assert 
the inutility of the Bible as a God-given and inspired book. 
It fancies that it is possible to make good and complete 
eternal destiny without a revelation, a providence, a prayer, 
a Christ or a creed; but for this very reason it is insufficient, 
it disallows the very things that the soul needs. 

The soul needs a system of fundamental doctrines so 
evidently true that it commends itself to man's inner con- 
sciousness, and is adopted by all mankind whenever pre- 
sented, for when left unguided by some fixed principle of 
truth, the mind is a compassless craft at sea, the sport of 
every tossiug wave and changing breeze. The soul needs a 
creed. 

The soul needs also a Christ, just such a Christ as the 
Scripture reveals; the embodiment and representation <>t 
all humanity, and all providence, and all wisdom, and all 



SHORT REDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 219 



love, who can be apprehended by each heart, who reaches 
down to every need and lifts up the world to the helpful- 
ness of Almighty God, a mediator between God and man. 
The soul needs Christ. 

The soul needs to come into communion with the 
Father of Spirits. There come experiences into every hu- 
man life that make prayer imperative. In the moments of 
our purest, most exalted thought we commune with God. 

The soul needs to discover behind nature an intelli- 
gence that can control its forces for the good of those who 
live under them; an intelligent, moral being, who can pre- 
sent to this waiting world a standard of righteousness, 
absolute and authoritative, that wears no mark, considers 
no philosophy, wants no argument, but bides its time and 
commands the submission of all mankind. 

Not only does the Bible supply these deep and awful 
longings of the soul, but the equality, the fraternity, the 
peace, the benevolence, the freedom and the world-wide 
diffusion of moral principle that constitute the boast of 
rationalism, have never been practical except where the 
religious life that springs from the Holy Scriptures have 
endowed them with vitality and power. Nay, they have 
scarcely been possible even to theory without the Bible. 
There was no equality, no fraternity, no peace, no largeness 
of benevolence and no aggressiveness in morality, until 
the scroll of Scripture was unrolled and the human heart 
caught some of the inspiration that inspired its precepts 
and promises. 

Rationalism therefore is too narrow to satisfy the de- 
mands of reason, and altogether too narrow to supply the 
needs of deathless souls. It may be good as far as it goes. 
It has helped to emancipate the mind from the thrall of 
superstition. It has started into life a vigorous Biblical 



220 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

criticism. It has compelled the Church to defend the au- 
thenticity of the sacred canon. It has called out substantial 
proof of the genuineness of the Gospel records. It has 
aroused an enthusiastic search after external evidence of the 
fulhllment of prophecy, and it has caused Christians to put 
the argument in favor of miracle on a scientific basis. Thus 
it is good as far as it goes; but for other than these indirect 
influences, the dogmas of rationalism are dry crumbs for 
undying souls. It may have been a good check to formal- 
ism; sometimes I think that rationalism is formality and 
superstition gone to seed, but a weary world needs some 
other breeze to fill its sails of hope, and when the heart- 
nature once takes hold of the love of God in Christ, and 
makes that love a part of itself, as thousands and millions 
of our race have done, then the muttering thunder of ra- 
tionalism dies away like the echo that in the distance is 
sobbing to its death. 

Exalt therefore and applaud rationalism to the very 
highest degree possible to it ; still it will be a bed too short 
for a full grown man with unfolding hopes and expanding 
spiritual powers to stretch himself upon. Hide moral 
responsibility behind this as a covering, and the soul will 
appear as one morally naked and groaning after God, reve- 
lation and Christ. 

5. Spiritualism is insufficient. Spiritualism and 
rationalism are perfect antipodes, one of the other. Ra- 
tionalism is reason without faith, and spiritualism is faith 
without reason. To serve the soul faith and reason must 
go hand in hand. 

If salvation were the reward of abstract faith, then 
spiritualists would be the most saved because they believe 
most. They believe in the supernatural, in inspiration, in 
vision, they believe in the Delphic oracles, raps, the march 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 221 

and countermarch of chairs and tables, in luminous hands. > 
planchette, phantom forms; they believe that Christ was an 
ideal, not a real person; that his death was not real, only 
ideal; they believe that the Gospel is a revelation of ideals 
that become valuable according to the spiritual mould 
through which they may be run in man-soul ; and the}' be- 
lieve the universe is but a dream, an ideal; that our senses 
delude us, everything is a vision, a hallucination. 

The soul cannot be satisfied with a refuge of shadows; 
there may be some truth in spiritualism, but of itself it is 
incomplete. Faith is good if well-founded. Faith without 
a bottom-rock of common sense is folly. Belief does in- 
deed ennoble man. but to be ennobling it must be reasona- 
ble. My faith is unreasonable and childish if quickened b} T 
the spiritual insight of another. The faith that ennobles 
grows out of the sweet reasonableness of one's own infer- 
ences and experiences; it cannot come through a medium; 
it must proceed from a fact, not an ideal. Ideals are phan- 
toms that vanish in my grasp. Might as well trust the 
vanishing images of an opium sleep as the hazy spectres 
that are supposed to appear before a medium in a clairvoy- 
ant trance. The soul cannot build its eternal destiny on 
such serial bubbles as these. 

That philosophy or ism which, with its enchanting 
rod, smites the universe into a mere ideal, is altogether too 
fine for intellectual men to trust in. Cobwebs may catch 
flies, but men sweep them away and tread on the spiders 
that built them; they want something more substantial 
than gossamer; they know themselves and the world they 
live in to be real, despite the philosophical impressions of 
Berkeley; it is too full of hard turns to be a dream; life is 
real; everything is real, and nothing can satisfy a human 
soul if it be not real; for a real life there must be a real 
love, for a real soul there is a real future; for a real sinner 



222 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 



there is a real Savior, and from the real Gospel of a real 
Christ to real man may come a real character and a real 
destiny. Your ample soul cannot rest in the gossamer 
folds of a fanciful spiritualism. The soul needs both the 
natural and the supernatural, the evolutions of reason and 
the sweep of faith, but not the faith of fancy, it must be 
the faith of substance, u for faith is the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." 

6. Formalism is insufficient I can imagine some one 
to say there is a God, the Heavens declare his glory, and 
the firmament showeth forth his handiwork; he is a Spirit, 
the Father of Spirits, and I am his offspring; I love the 
trees, the flowers, the singing of the birds and the bright 
stars; but all these beautiful things do not satisfy me; in 
my heart is an aching void that the world in allitslovliness 
cannot fill. I am dissatisfied because there is a divine na- 
ture in my breast, there is a divine spirit in me that wants 
God and Heaven. Death cannot harm me, I shall live for- 
ever. I need a guide to the city out of sight; my Heavenly 
Father has furnished that guide in the Holy Scriptures; 
they are a lamp to my feet and a light to my path ; they can 
direct me in the highway of holiness; I will walk therein; 
the interests of my soul shall be my chief concern; I will 
worship God. 1 will look above the perishing things that 
surround me. 

Then, I can imagine such an one undertaking, with 
good intentions, to work out his own salvation; he gets the 
form of godliness, catechism and confirmation entitle him 
to a place among the members of the Church. The Holy 
Communion is the evidence of his penitence, baptism is 
the testimony of his regeneration. He is regularly at 
Church, before the altar in due form, mouth and eyes en- 
gage in worship; he keeps inviolate every form and method- 
ically attends to every prescribed rule. The minister says 



SHOUT BEDS AND NAUBOW GOVEULETS. 223 



the Lord is in his Holy Temple; let all the earth keep 
silence, and silence reigns. He repeats every part of the 
confession. The minister says Lord open thou our lips, 
he responds, and our mouth shall show forth thy praise, 
and the mouth begins to sing, we praise thee of God. Yet 
somehow the worshipper is dissatisfied; he grasps divine 
truths, he utters glorious things, he meditates on symbols 
that are pregnant with sublime significance, and partici- 
pates in rites and ceremonies that are wonderfully sugges- 
tive and inspiring. Yet there is an emptiness in his heart. 
He knows that his moral nature transcends his ritual. He 
feels that the cradle in which he rocks ceremoniously to 
and fro, is too small for his immortal soul, and realizes that 
the elegant patch-work of prescribed forms, that is laid 
first on one spot and then on another, just to suit the case, 
is too narrow for a soul that chills in any other refuge than 
the living bosom of the eternal God. 

It is conceded that some kind of form is important, 
for all life has some external manifestation. The flower 
life, for instance, expresses itself in stems, leaves, petals, 
seeds. Insect life expresses itself in an ovary, a catterpillar 
and a pair of powdered wings, and the canary life expresses 
itself in a germinal dot. yellow plumage and joyous song. 
So a potent spiritual life must express itself in altars, tem- 
ples, forms of worship, dne attitude, ritual, choirs, and dis- 
courses. The very fact that these things are is evidence 
that there was somewhere a spiritual power to produce 
them. 

It is not enough that we have inherited these spacious 
sanctuaries, inspiring songs and suggestive ceremonies. We 
belittle ourselves if simply living in them and appropriating 
them, just as the martin does,some church steeple, or the 
owl tiie ivy covered tower of some castle. It is puerile to 



224 SHOUT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

be carried to church by a mere force of habit, and sit all of 
a row like so many flower-pots in a green house, and wait 
to see if perchance the gardener will drop a rose already 
blown upon our mold. We need to have a life in ourselves, 
bursting outwardly and expressing itself, just as the flower 
bursts out from the seed. If this life is wanting,our songs, 
our ceremonies, oar sanctuaries are nothing better than 
last-year's birds nests, they are like the shells that the bird- 
ling discarded yesterday, Ave can find no satisfaction in 
them. 

The soul refuses to be buried in a coffin of formality, 
no matter how exquisite it may be. Every man who looks 
into his own conscience despises himself for having in frigid 
formalism endeavored to palm himself off for what he is 
not. It is a bed too short and a cover too narrow for a 
soul. 

III. CHRISTIANITY IS A SUFFICIENT REFUGE, 

There are two or three things that ought to be said in 
regard to this idea of the sufficiency of the Gospel. 

1. Whatever else may be said of the Gospel, it cannot 
be said that it is dwarfish or narrow. 

The great cry of the nineteenth century is "more 
room.'" " Our fathers were content to live in log cabins, but 
we have an eye on largeness, we want houses, mansions, 
palaces; the youth of the last generation were satined with 
district schools, but now the college is on every lip and in 
every heart. We are spreading out, aspiring upward; we 
want more room. Nor is this want objectionable; as the 
race becomes more god-like, each iu dividual will need more 
room; houses large and elegant, breadth, breadth of view, 



SHORT BEDS .VND NARROW COVERLETS. 225 

breadth of culture, are all right; but particularly do we 
need abundance of room for our religion, and this is right 

also. 

This universal longing for a religion that has breadth 
to it is one of the favorable signs of the times; it is the very 
thought that will bring the world to Christ some day. for 
his religion is the religion of breadth; thus the deity of 
Christianity is infinite; the Scriptures of Christianity are 
of universal adaptation; the salvation of Christianity is for 
all the world, and the character of Christianity towers to 
the very height of moral sublimity. It is the roomiest re- 
ligion. There is room in it for the employment of every 
gool and perfect gift; for every noble purpose, for every 
loving sacrifice, and for every lofty ideal, and there is room 
in the Gospel for every son and daughter of Adam. 

While the fundamental truths of the Gospel are firm 
as the eternal hills, its spirit is fluent, sweeping 
on through ages, deepening, widening, sloughing off an 
excrescence nere, breaking out into new beauty there, 
and so comprehensive is its future hope that it promises 
to every redeemed soul a glorious progressiveness through- 
out eternity; it doth not yet appear what we shall be. 

The breadth and greatness of the Gospel, as it shall be 
when it has accomplished its work, and unfolded all its 
hidden truths and divine power is, in the apocalypse, pre- 
sented in symbols of marvelous beauty and significance. 
Its breadth is therein displayed under the figure of a city 
that lieth four square. I am aware that it is supposed to 
be a description of Heaven, but what is Heaven but the 
Gospel in its glorious consummation? That city is a per- 
fect cube, its length, and breadth, and height are equal; 
that is it is absolutely complete; it is a truth to which 
nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be 
taken away. 



226 SHORT EEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

It represents the Gospel in its consummation us being 
so ample that there is no danger of being crowded; there 
could have been no narrowness about the surveyor who 
planned and laid out so great a city. It is inconceivably im- 
mense; compared with this outlook everything else sinks 
into pigmy insignificance. It is Large as this world, nay 
more, it has been reckoned that within its walls of twelve 
thousand furlongs it could furnish a room 19 feet square and 
16 feet high for each inhabitant of five million worlds as 
large as this. Surely this is broad enough. Men talk 
about the Gospel as being narrow and insufficient, too small 
for their broad ideas, but they know not what they say, for 
no human thought ever took in the full measure of this 
god-given truth. 

2. Not only is Christianity thus complete, and infin- 
itely outreaching the broadest views of the broadest liber- 
alism, but it covers the deficiencies of every human ex- 
pedient. 

We have spoken of some of those expedients. Athe- 
ism, materialism, spiritualism, formalism, and have seen 
'how inadequate they all are to supply the needs of a hu- 
man soul; but just where these things fail the Gospel shows 
itself to be all-sufficient. It softly touches with its wand 
the anxious heart of man and says, child, thou art not alone, 
there is a God, he is thy Father, the Father of all, he num- 
bers the very hairs of your head, he counts each tear that 
trickles down your cheek. 

" And in his home, though pceans swept the hall, 
And glory domed the universal light; 
If over one poor soul hell spread its pall, 
There would be night, and wailing in the night." 

The Gospel, voiced with sweet assurance, whispers to 
the soul something of its value; it tells that human life is 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 227 

better than a bubble, better than the aggregation of dis- 
solving atoms; it is a drop from the fountain of life, it is a 
bright beam from the light of God; and that it would profit 
a man nothing though he should gain the whole world, 
the whole material universe, if he were to lose his soul. 

The Gospel also crowns the soul with immortality; it 
bids every mournful expectation away; its voices echo 
through the centuries declaring not only that Christ hath 
plucked out the sting, but that he hath abolished death, 
and brought life and immortality to light; down through 
the grave flashes its Heavenly ray, burning out its corrup- 
tion, and up to Heaven darts its revealing beam making 
manifest the truth that ' 'there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
pain," but 

" We shall flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds. 

The Gospel also brings the supernatural down to the 
natural; it puts a divine feather in the wing of reason; it 
renders spiritual existence rational and evident; and shows 
that thp pass- word at the everlasting doors will not be 
''ceremony," but ''character, 11 that character that comes 
from a heart that has been made pure by washing in the 
blood of the lamb. 

Thus the Gospel covers the deficiencies of every human 
expedient. With an everlasting Father, with a being 
transcending in value the material universe, with a life that 
nothing can destroy, with a reason that takes in the infin- 
ite, with a spirituality founded on solid fact, with a charac- 
ter that outshines the stars, all guaranteed in the Gospel, 
what can the soul ask for more? Trusting in the o-lorious 



228 SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 

Gospel of the Son of God, the soul is sensible of its suf- 
ficiency; it Knows that the religion of Christianity is not 
a bed too short, nor a covering too narrow. 

3. But it would have been too small as a refuge for 
an immortal soul, if it had ignored the fearful fact of sin; 
that little word sin is a word of fearful magnitude; the 
want that springs up in our natures because of sin is an 
awful want; its poisoned roots strike deep into the recesses 
of our moral being. do not laugh when the thought 
of guiltiness before God lies like a dead weight of convic- 
tion on the conscience. When the whole world is corrupt- 
ing under its power, do not say it is nothing but a little 
irregularity. Do not call him demented who, when he 
discovers his own moral deformity, cries with all the ear- 
nestness of the blind man, Son of David have mercy on me, 
When my soul is sick because of sin do not send me to the 
apothecaries for a dose. Do not administer to me Andrew 
Jackson Davis 1 prescription for a sin-convicted soul: — 
li Bruised Cinnamon bark, 1 tablespoonful; bruised nutmeg 
1 tablespoonful; cardamon seed, horse radish, ginger root, 
mandrakes, Turkey rhubarb, powdered, each 2 tablespoon- 
fuls." Do not tell me that such a dose as this can cure 
my sin-sick soul. Do not tell me there is no remedy. The 
Gospel is the remedy; it is adapted to my need; there is 
balm in the blood; it is efficacious; how the remedy works 
to cure my moral malady I cannot tell; but it is the testi- 
mony of thousands, millions, from the apostolic age to this, 
that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. It 
makes the profane lip chaste, it speaks peace to the infu- 
riated passion, it stirs the soul with the forces of divine 
life, it fills the hateful heart with the softening influences of 
love, it turns our Hell into Heaven, and so softly strikes the 
harp-strings of the human soul that they vibrate with 



SHORT BEDS AND NARROW COVERLETS. 



229 



celestial music, and notes of praise leap upward from them 
to the throne of God. Thus the religion of Jesus has the 
power to make sinful men holy. 

In conclusion, we have no time for review, and the 
application must be brief; would that I could make it in one 
burning sentence, but I cannot; this only can I say to my 
fellow man: Your soul needs a refuge, an all-sufficient 
refuge, one that can save you, for you have a great soul, 
a soul full of deep and awful longings; you want God, you 
want eternal life, you want salvation; let me then assure 
you in the language of St. Paul that " my God shall supply 
all your needs, according to his riches in glory, by Christ 
Jesus. 1 ' Come to him. 




THE BREAD OF LIFE. 



I am the living bread which came down from Heaven; if any 
man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that 
I will give is my ilesh, which I will give for the life of the 
world.— John 6, 51 . 

Man is a complex being, living two lives at once, a 
life physical and a life spiritual, therefore requiring bread 
for his body and bread for his soul. 

Christ recognized these respective imperative demands 
by miraculously satisfying the material hunger of thous- 
ands and, in the opportune hour, recommending living 
bread for deathless souls. 

Man, in each and every stage of his existence, is a 
creature of the most imperative longings; he comes into 
world, passes through it, and dies in want. The infant 
seeks impatiently to satisfy this want; restless childhood 
is in constant search after something that will satisfy; 
ambitious youth finds this wmt growing with his growth 
and strengthening with his years, En mature life responsi- 
bility is increased and new demands are awakened; and in 



THE BEE AD OF LIFE. 231 

old age this want is rendered even more intense, because 
then the captive spirit looks out into eternity and longs to 
be free. 

Though books are multiplied, knowledge is increased, 
earth and ocean pour out their treasures, though the ele- 
ments have been brought under control, though barbarism 
and tyranny are disappearing, and the Gospel, like a strange 
sweet spell, is in the world; yet the world is not quiet, it 
never had more nor greater wants and longings; the race is 
calling and toiling for bread, that is, for something that 
can satisfy its yearnings, as much to-day as ever. 

It is a very important question, what can the nearest 
satisfy? The text contains the only plausible answer. It 
is the answer which he gave who spoke as man never spoke, 
he upon whose lips was poured the spirit without meas- 
ure. " I am the living bread which came down from 
Heaven, if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever, 
and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which 1 will give 
for the life of the world. 4 ' Let us inquire therefore in re- 
gard to 

I. THE ORIGIN OF THIS BREAD. 

It is u the bread which came down from Heaven. 1 ' 
We are not at a loss to know to what the term bread 
refers; we know it is a term by which Christ is described; 
indeed Jesus is the them ■ of the book of John, particularly 
of this chapter, the name Jesus occurs more than twenty 
times herein, and there are over a hundred indirect refer- 
enc es to him in those fifty-three short verses ; nay, more, it 
is Jesus' own declaration, kt [ am the living bread which 
came down from Heaven." 

If Christ came then he was before he came; if became 
down in the sense of descending from above, then he must 



232 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 



hive been above before he cams; or if coming down signi- 
fies some moral condescension, then he must have enjoyed 
a certain moral eminence prior to his condescension. 

Christ said " T am the living bread which came down 
from Heaven," which means, as I take it, that he actually 
came down from Heaven; tint he condescended to this 
world of sin; that he came down, not from the upper air. 
not from starry space, but from Heaven, the place of su- 
preme dignity, glory, authority and power; he declared that 
he came thence to this world. 

There is a threa-fold world beyond us; this three-fold 
world is iu fch 3 Scripture c ill el Hywen; there is the atmos- 
pheric Heaven, hence the Bible speiksof the birds, the dew, 
the clouds, the frosts, the winds, the rain, the lightning of 
Heaven; there is also the astronomic heaven, and in Scrip- 
ture frequent allusion is mide to the lights, stars, hosts, of 
Heaven, while Venus, the morning star, Arcturus, Orion 
and the Pleiades move in the midst of and are commanded 
by him who spreadeth out the Heavens. Finally there is 
the Heaven of Heavens, the place where God's honor 
dwelleth. the Scripture speaks of it as the habitation of 
angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, and of spiritual principalities 
and powers; thus in the most glorious sense Heaven is the 
sovereign assembly ot rulers, the seat of supreme and uni- 
versal government, the place of the power of infinite dig- 
nity and authority. Now Christ said " I came down from 
Heaven, all power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth," 
I control the forces ot this world, the elements, and the 
prince of the power of the air are in my hand; I command 
the stars, the universe is subject to me; if there are souls 
to be redeemed in other worlds than this I must redeem 
them, and I shall ascend whence I cam.', far above all 
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and 
every name that is named, not only in this world but that 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 233 



which is to come: I am come to this world on an errand of 
love, my mission is a mission of salvation; I come that the 
world might have spiritual Life and have it more abund- 
antly. 

We should expect from such a character as Christ was 
just such a life as that which he lived. It is not strange 
that his presence and power were felt in every kingdom 
from the lowest to the highest; that nature's forces should 
obey his law; that sorrow should be subdued and trouble 
softened; that he should beat back sin and pardon the sin- 
ner, and that he should command the gates of death and 
the portals of eternity, for it is declared "in him all things 
consist." 

Men talk learnedly about the impossibility of miracles, 
because they do not study Christ; his admitted personality 
i a guarantee that the greatest marvel would have been 
had he not worked a miracle. 

To declare that the control of nature is impossible, 
when the Creator himself commands its control is as absurd 
as it is false. To declare that in such a presence the regular 
order of things cannot be set aside is certainly a wild 
declaration. Man himself frequently sets aside the regular 
order of things; he often produces results in nature that 
would not have been brought about by any invariable se- 
quence of natural causes, left to their independent action: 
If man should move a pebble from the place where nature 
put it, if he throw a stone into the air, or catch a falling 
body before it reaches the ground, he interferes with the 
regular arrangement of things; it is a part of the plan that 
he should interfere ; when he hurls a cannon ball five miles, 
when he apprentices a light-beam to an artist, when he 
sails in the heavens with a balloon, or when without horses 
or beasts of burden he causes a train of cars to ascend a 



234 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

mountain, or when chloroform or electricity is made to do 
his bidding, he disturbs the natural order of things, the 
regular course of law. 

Even so natural a man as Tynda.ll, had he with that 
scientist's present knowledge stepped into Jerusalem, during 
the reign of Augustus, would have caused souud, light, 
heat, electricity to become his credentials; but a greater 
than Tyndall was there, and therefore matter and men, and 
human hearts gave testimony to his power. The miracle 
was the credential of messiahship; thus when Christ was 
asked "art thou he that should come, or do we look for an- 
other?" he answered, "the blind receive their sight and the 
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the 
dead are raised up and the poor have the Gospel preached 
unto them. 1 ' 

But the miraculous is the ordinary aspect of the uni- 
verse; creation is a miracle; the supernatural is everywhere 
the most natural; each thoughful man has stood in awe of 
the mysterious miracle of nature that is perpetually per- 
forming; the incarnation is no more mysterious than any 
other expression of divine power and wisdom; no more than 
the divine expression of |a flower; the marvel is' not that 
such a character as Christ should perform a miracle, but the 
marvel is that there ever was a Christ, that God should love 
us lost sinners so much as to put on our humiliation and 
our dust, on purpose to redeem us. this is the mystery ! 
this is the thing that angels desire to look into, every inter- 
ference with natural law pales before the superior bright- 
ness of God's great plan of redeeming love. hear it all 
ye worlds, shout it to each other ye sons of light, God lias 
come down from Heaven to earth to save lost men. 

The socinians say that Christ came down from Heaven 
though not in the sense of ever having been there, but in 



THE BREAD 0E LIFE. 235 

the sense that every good and perfect gift is said to come 
from ahove. They deny therefore the divinity of Christ, 
assert that he was nothing but a man. They say that the 
divine attributes ascribed to him in Scripture, are nothing 
but deputed titles. And they declare that Christ simply 
preached the truth to men, set them an example of moral 
heroism, and sealed his doctrines with his blood. 

But the multitudes did not understand Jesus' declara- 
tions concerning himself in this socinian sense: they mur- 
mured because he said, W T am the bread which came down 
from Heaven. 11 The questions which they proposed were, 
is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother 
we know? Ho.w is it then that he saith "I am come down 
from Heaven? 11 

If the people had misinterpreted Christ's declarations 
certainly he would have corrected them; but he did not; on 
the contrary he allowed them to believe that he really came 
down from Heaven. If they were mistaken he was willing 
that they should be, and he added bewilderment to their 
surprise by saying "doth this offend you? What and if ye 
shall see the son of man ascend up wheree he was be- 
fore? 11 

If the words of Christ were nothing but lofty figures 
of speech, and high-sounding symbols, they were mislead- 
ing, they made mischief, they embarassed the cause, and 
they were wicked, for, for a born man to talk of condesend- 
ing to the world, for a creature to aspire to be equal to the 
Creator is blasphemous in the extreme. 

Though Christ himself had indulged in such hyperbole 
honest men like Peter and learned men like Paul, would 
regard such speech as unworthy of panegyricyet Peter,Paul 



236 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

and the other apostles proclaimed Christ Lord in terms no 
less strong, and described his glory in language no less 
sublime. 

John explains that Jesus Christ had a beginning, even 
when the Word was made flesh, that he was a substance, 
that he was a divine man, that as such he dwelt among 
men, he was a light shining in darkness, and he was called 
the only begotten, in him was life, the life of the Word, 
and that the Word was made flesh, the Word was God; 
thus although in the earthly sense, there never was a Jesus 
Christ until the incarnation, yet the Word was in the be- 
ginning, and to manifest itself in the flesh the Word came 
down from Heaven. 

The Apostle Paul still father explains that the divine 
being, in the person of Christ was rich, he was in the form 
of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, 
and he took upon himself the form of a servant, and was 
found in fashion as a man, and in him dwewlt all the ful- 
ness of the god-head bodily. 

The god-head, in some sense dwells in all men, it 
dwells in all men in the sense of imparting life, and per- 
petuating existence; it dwells to awaken heroism, to inspire 
to noble deeds and self-sacrifice; it dwells to lead out into - 
the undiscovered fields of knowledge, and it dwells in hu- 
man hearts to make men wise unto salvation; but in every 
sense in which God can dwell in humanity he dwells in 
Jesus Christ, and dwells fully, absolutely; therefore Christ 
Jesus is the focus of all glory; he is the synonym for infin- 
itely glorious possibilities. He is the living bread which 
came down from Heaven. 

Thus the pre-existence of Christ is proved by his own 
declarations and confirmed by the teachings of the inspired 
apostles. This fact explains many other facts, and renders 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 2^7 

possible the posthumous ministry and the perpetual spirit- 
ual influence of Christ. It makes true the assertion, and 
renders veritable the proposition, "if Liny man eat of this bread 
he shall live for ever, 1 ' for, in revealing an infinite source it 
pledges an infinite supply for every love-needy, life-needy 
soul; the metaphor could have had no meaning had not 
Christ come down from heaven. This brings us to con- 
sider 

II. NATURE OF THIS BREAD. 

Christ is presented to us under a variety of symbols, 
the variety is so great that one can scarce look upon any- 
thing in nature but some feature of his character is sug- 
gested; "the little flower by the wayside, the very road on 
which you travel, the waters that go playing through the 
meadow, the land, the sheep, the shepherd, the tree that 
offers you shelter and bids you eat of its fruit, the sun in 
the heavens, the rock, and the very robe you wear, all have 
a voice and speak of Christ. In the text Christ introduces 
still another symbol of himself, " I am the living bread.' 1 

Of each, and of all the matchless figures of speech used 
by Christ, it can be said, that they were not far-fetched, 
but were suggested by the circumstances and by association. , 
This symbol of bread is not an exception to the rule. At- 
tracted by his miracles, knowing that he could supply their 
every need great multitudes followed the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The multitude was unusually great at the particu- 
lar time referred to in the context, b3cause it was the time 
of the Passover. Then the people of Palestine were all 
astir and in transit toward Jerusalem, 

The Passover occurred just before harvest, at that time 
if any, bread was scarce and commanded a high price. 
Christ performed a notable miracle, feeding five thousand 
men with five barley loaves and two small fishes. So 



238 THE 13READ OP LIFE. 

pleased were, the people that in a short time after, the mira- 
cle, probably as soon as they became hungry again, they 
pursued Christ over the sea, for they were aware that the 
Disciples had carried away with them twelve baskets full 
of the miracle made bread. 

The Jews had been frequently pinched by famine; they 
had toiled hard for bread which often had been denied them 
but with Christ as their king they thought that, a temporal 
evil could not assail them, therefore fostering in their 
hearts revolt against the rule of Rome, they followed the 
baskets and fragments crying bread! bread! bread! Moses 
in the wilderness had given their Fathers bread, it had 
fallen like the dew or the rain; 0! what if Christ could 
command its descent in a perpetual shower, then labor 
might cease and anxious hearts could rest, and then they 
could accept the miracle as the credential of messiahship 
and crown Jesus as their King. 

Many to-day seek Christ from similar motives; they 
take only a sensuous view of Christianity; they are merce- 
nary, seeking Christ, not for character, not for the divine 
life that he imparts, but for self and pelf, for loaves and 
fishes. Christ would turn human hearts away from such 
low intentions; he would not have them toil exclusively 
for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth, 
for that which the Son of God came to supply. 

Bread, whether baked in the oven or rained from the 
sky, can serve, at best, only a temporary purpose, it is not 
the bread of life, it is only a type of it. While the body is 
an essential part of being, and its health, maintainance, 
and the education of the mini, are among the important 
demands of life, the training and development of the moral 
nature transcends them all in importance. 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 239 

Man is only partially and poorly satisfied when his 
bodily hunger is appeased. Soul-hunger is deeper, more 
fearful, and far more worthy of consideration, therefore 
Christ said "I am the living bread," T can supply your spir- 
itual need, I can nourish your moral life, so that he who 
cometh to me shall not again be tortured with that hunger 
of spirit that all the world cannot satisfy; he that cometh 
to me shall know what it is to be satisfied, and the bread 
which I will give is not that perishable substance that is baked 
in an oven; not that which descended on the desert of which 
the fathers ate and are dead,but the bread which I give is my 
flesh, which I give for the life of the world. Your motives 
are low and gross when you labor exclusively for the other, 
they are exalted unto the highest when you earnestly seek 
for the bread that can bring life unto the soul. 

There seems to be an abrupt transition in the words of 
Jesus from bread to flesh. It is said if the Master had 
continued the simple, beautiful figure of bread, the doctrine 
would seem less harsh. It is objected that the change of 
figure puts a sort of cannibalism into it, and that the idea 
of eating flesh and drinking blood, especially the flesh and 
blood of Christ, is most revolting. 

But in realit} T Christ did not change the figure, but com- 
pleted it in the use of the term flesh Man shall not live by 
bread alone; vegetable diet, though good, is not sufficient of 
itself for the support of the physical and the mental man; the 
nutriment of all living bodies must contain the constituents 
of those bodies; bread does not contain all the constituents 
of the living bodies of men; an animal diet is as necessary 
as vegetable besides, the Hebrews believed that the very 
life of the flesh was in the blood. Christ, therefore, when 
he said my flesh is meat, my blood is drink indeed, simply 
carried out to its fullness, the beautiful idea that he came to 
. give life unto the world. 



240 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

The language of course is not to be literally inter- 
preted. Christ uses the figure of eating and drinking be- 
cause such was the tcpic of discourse. The simple thought 
is as flesh is an essential aliment for man, so the grace and 
salvation of Christ; secured by the sacrifice of himself is 
necessary for the moral strengthening and development of 
the soul; it is more than bread, it is the very elixir of spir- 
itual life, "meat indeed. 1 ' An outpouring of the life of 
Jesus brought life to the world, and he who by faith re- 
ceives that bread divme in assimilated into the likeness of 
Christ. So that the precious life that went out on Calvary 
springs up again in every redeemed soul. As it is received 
it is sweeter than honey to the moral taste. He who has 
once tasted that the Lord is gracious will say evermore give 
me this bread. 

Thus the doctrine is taught us that by some condescen- 
sion to earth, as when the wheat is cast upon the furrow, 
by some strange manifestation of an unseen life, as when 
the stalk springs upward from the seed; by some providen- 
tial display, as when fields wave with golden grain; by some 
inexplainable law of death, as when the grain is crushed 
and prepared for the oven; by some process of spiritual 
assimilation, as when the essence of bread becomes an 
essential part of the body; so Christ, the Word, ha* conde- 
scended to earth and given himself to us, and by some sac- 
rifice, some devotion of his body, and blood, and life, that 
we cannot fully understand, the world is benefitted and the 
moral nature of man shall not die. Let us consider 

TIT. THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH THIS BREAD IS GIVFN TO THE 

WORLD. 

All food is the gift of Gv»d. Man may plant, and sow, 
and reap, and raise sheep and cattle; he can cook and pre- 
sent food in a great variety of forms; only furnish the ma- 
terial and he can tix it up to suit himself, but he cannot 



THE BREAD OF* LIFE. 241 

manufacture an atom- of any substance that enters into his 
daily food. Every atom is the gift of God. So the Bread 
of Life is the gift of God. "Blessed be God for his un- 
speakable gift. 11 Now, if given it was given for a purpose. 
For what purpose then, according to what plan or law was 
Christ given to the world? 

According to the text and many other Scriptures Christ 
was given "for 11 or in place of the world. '' He gave him- 
self a ransom for many. 11 " His flesh is given for the life 
of the world. 11 He tasted death for every man. That 
word ''for, 11 that idea of substitution, or in the place of, is 
scouted as unscientific, unphilosophical and impossible. 
Yet, I am bold to say that, scouted though this idea may 
be, it is nevertheless in harmony with a prevalent law of 
being. 

Look on a vegetable; what is it but God in that par- 
ticular form revealing himself to you? Consider its mis- 
sion, it is to regale your sense, it is to perpetuate your 
life, it must pass away, it must die, but it will die for you, 
it is possessed of a life that is not its own, but an im- 
parted life, a life that has been bestowed by God, but for 
what? For you. 

The whole vegetable kingdom, with its infinite va- 
riety and beauty, the grasses, the flowers, the plants, the 
trees, in ways unnumbered do good service for man; the 
entire vegetable kingdom lives arid dies that man may 
live; on oak and pine, on seed and flower, on leaf- and 
stalk, and root, the law of sacrifice and substitution is 
plainly writ; go where you may, from zone to zone, and 
that law will always and everywhere confront you. 

Rising into the animal kingdom, we find that a simi- 
lar death and substitution prevail; here is suffering and 



242 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

death for my need; I am nourished by the death of many 
living creatures who die for me; but the life of those ani- 
mals is not their own, it is given, it is but a drop from 
the fountain of all life which is God, and is given to them 
for me; therefore it is, as is the death of vegetation, only a 
little higher type, a feature of a divinely appointed vica- 
rious system, a sort of substitutional arrangement. There 
may be a superabundance. God sometimes shows his mu- 
nificence by waste; but the life of Hying bird, lowing 
kine, bleating lamb is for the great world of humanity. 
The whole animal kingdom surrenders its life or goes down 
to death that man may live. 

The intellectual is the next higher grade of life; it is 
supported by thought that has truth in it. The past has 
been busy providing thought-food for the present. There 
is a sense in which we are all thinking for each other; 
those who think truth and those who think untruth. 
Many a philosopher has found himself indebted to the er- 
roneous though t^ of another for the deathless truth that 
impearled his own thinking. Indeed, we all bring our in- 
tellections and offer 3 theni on the ^'sacred altar of Truth. 
Multitudes of thoughts perish'at the birth of every truth. 
Thus the law of substitution prevails in the world ot mind 
as itdoes in the world of matter. The human mind is at 
work; ultimately the absolute truth will obtain; when it 
shall obtain, and the world shall sweetly rest in it, Uncom- 
pleted work will be recognized as having been done by vi- 
carious means. 

The highest sphere of life is the moral. ,Is there sac- 
rifice or substitution liere? By no law of nature must 
men die for each other; .they do sometime, ^it is true, but it 
is the exception, not the rule, and even the exception is 
accidental, it does not enter into the divine plan. 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 243 

But according to Scriptural philosophy, a man is the 
center of universal consideration; earth rises, Heaven stoops 
to serve him, because, perhaps, the earthly and the Heav- 
enly meet in his nature. In so far as earth can subserve a 
human interest earth is for man; u all things are for your 
sakes, 11 and to satisfy any want that earth caunot fill Heav- 
en, God himself stands in waiting. Ten thousand fields 
might lade, an universe of flocks might perish, but they 
could not supply the needs of a deathless soul. A soul- 
want is deep as eternity, only the eternal can fill it. If, 
therefore, the soul-life is nourished and all its needs are 
supplied; if God works in his moral as he does in his lnate-^ 
rial realm, there must be sacrifice, there must be subtitu- 
tion for the soul. God in some sense must condescend to 
the spiritual necessities ot men; his life must somehow 
stoop, and become the substitute and the sacrifice for the 
moral life of the world. 

To that one who is conscious of his need of God, and 
finds in his moral nature a vacuum that only the moral 
life of the divine one can fill. To one who has tried every 
man-made remedy and still finds that his heart is empty, 
how sweet to look Calvary-ward and to hear that voice with 
celestial sweetness saying " I am the living bread which 
came down from Heaven, if any man eat of this bread he 
shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my 
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 11 But the 
fullness of that sweetness is to experience it. There are 
many all over the world that can say u now I live, yet not 
I, but Christ liveth in me. 1 ' 

It is a reasonable and inspiring thought that, as om- 
niscience has for man devoted the vegetable kingdom with 
all its beauteous life and all its nourishing properties; and 
he animal kingdom with all its variety of existence; and 



244 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

thought also, with all its sweep of power, so for the im- 
mortal soul he has consecrated himself, in the person of 
the incarnate Word and for the aspirations of the death- 
less spirit he has devoted the life and joy of eternity. 

Bread, food, is a natural provision for a natural want. 
The vegetable and the animal kingdoms are in substitution 
for the race in the sense of supplying its need. So, the 
condescension and sacrifice of Christ are a divine provision 
for a moral need ; they are God with his infinite resources of 
love, wisdom, and fatherhood adapting himself to the wants 
and spiritual necessities of every human soul; this provis- 
ion is as needful as bread, it is bread of a divine type. 

The sacrifice of the cross therefore affects man, not 
for the same purpose, but according to the same philosophy, 
as does every other God-ordained sacrifice. The mission of 
Christ to the world was not to banish pain, or prevent suf- 
fering, or relieve of responsibility, or even to avert physi- 
cal death, for we are all the children of curruption, u the 
worm is our mother and sister," and even in a moral sense 
each soul must die for his own sin, but Christ came to 
open up to man's waiting, wanting heart the kingdom of 
spiritual supply. 

There is something more therefore in the sacrifice of 
Christ than in the idea of a substitute, or an equivalent; 
something more than is conveyed in the thought that if 
he had not died the world must have died. For, if Christ 
was God incarnate, he was of more worth than the world; 
one infinite life is of infinitely greater value than any num- 
ber of finite lives. The atonement therefore, as the death 
of Christ is sometimes called, was nothing more or less than 
the entire kingdom of divine grace brought within the 
reach of every love-needy heart. 



THE BREAD OF LIEE. 245 

All moral providence inheres in Christ Jesus, he is the 
focal point, the universal moral center. Indifference to 
the overtures of his kingdom is moral insanity; inallegi- 
ance and wilful rejection is spiritual suicide. Might as 
well war with the laws of vegetation and refuse the merci- 
ful provisions of the material universe as to lead 
sedition in the kingdom of God's moral rule, 
or what is the same, refuse the Bread of Life. " Except ye 
eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man ye have 
no life in you." There is, there can be no sterling, perfect 
moral character and pure spiritual life outside of the pro- 
visions of the cross. 

The purpose for which this bread is given to the world 
is fully explained in the text. This living bread, this bread 
from Heaven is given, not for the life of angels, but for the 
life of the world, this world of men, this world of sinful 
men, and for the whole world ; if any man will eat this 
bread he shall live forever. It is Heaven contributing itself 
to earth; it is God giving himself to man, to each man who 
will accept, the poor and the rich, the black and the white, 
the great and the lowly; it is for the life of the whole 
world. 

It is not given that the world may exist simply, but 
that the race may live in the truest, the highest sense, not 
as the rock lives, or the flower, or the brute, nor simply as 
the philosopher lives, but that the souls of men may be 
healthy and vigorous with the life of God ; for to carry 
out the figures when the Bread of Life is received as the 
food of the soul, the divine life is imparted to the human 
and in a sense the human is made divine; both are 
made one. sweet experience when our life is hid with 
Christ in God, and he is formed in our hearts the hope of 
glory, controlling all our aims and creating all our joy. 



^46 THE BREAD OF LITE. 



The importance of this spiritual life suggests that it 
should be earnestly sought and eagerly accepted; that noth- 
ing on earth is, comparatively speaking, worth a thought 
beside. It should receive the most serious attention, and the 
unwearying effort of every reasonable man; but alas! most 
are pursuing the meat that perisheth; dazzled with the tin- 
sel of time they forget or reject the gold of eternity ; excited 
i n the greedy grasp and scuhie for loaves and fishes, they 
allow their moral natures to famish and die; engrossed in 
the things of sense their roots have become coarse, the 
juices of spiritual life cannot flow, their leaf has paled and 
their bloom is blasted. 

With such a contracted existence, such base experien- 
ces, no wonder that men are unbelieving and immoral, and 
lose faith in the future and confidence in the spiritual pos- 
sibilities of the present. Would I could remove these false 
impressions. God is not unjust. Having furnished even- 
needed temporal good, the soul has not been forgotten, 
there is an infinite supply for its moral need; living bread 
has come down from Heaven; it has pleased God that in 
Christ all fullness should dwell. Let us look up to him, 
moral reaching out toward him with all our longings, all our 
powers, then we shall be undeceived and smiling sunbeam 
and distilling dew will quicken our moral natures, render 
earth more yielding, our leaf green, our bloom imperish- 
able. 

Dear friend, have you an appetite for this Heavenly 
bread? Without it the moral nature perishes: eat or die is 
a law of the spirit as well as a law in physics: but if any 
man eat of this bread he ;hall live forever. Labor not 
therefore for the meat that perisheth, but for that which 
endureth unto everlasting life. 



THE BREAD OF LLFE. 



247 



It is said in classic fable that the Muses of Knowledge, 
Art, Intellect and Fame had their charmed and beautiful 
abode on the brow of a lofty hill, that there flowed a crys- 
tal spring, there towered a temple of gold, and whoever 
would wear the crown of success must climb the hill, drink 
of the spring and worship at the holy shrine. So, the way 
of the Christian is ever up, up toward sweeter and more 
enchanting heights, up to a purer spring than classic poet 
ever dreamed, up to a fairer temple than ever crowned the 
acropolis of Athens, up into the life of Grod. Christ is the 
gate of that asceut, and the bread of that life, he is the 
hand divine, reaching, down to help us up, he is our crown 
of life. Let us climb the hill, let us drink of the waters, 
let us clothe character with the mantle of the righteousness 
of Christ, 




THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 



That at chat time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the 
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of 
promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. 

But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are 
made nigh by the blood of Christ.— Eph. 2, 12 and 13. 

Considered as a literary production, the epistle to the 
Ephesians may be regarded as a funeral oration,pronounced 
by Paul over the grave of all ancient, and particularly of 
Grecian philosophy, civilization and religion. 

In his oration the speaker pays a well deserved tribute 
to Christianity by representing it, not as a new 
born thing of time, but as the offspring of eternity; not- 
as a product of matter but with all matter beneath it; not 
as a philosophy but a life; and, as appearing not as when 
the avenger of Julius Caesar is supposed to have appeared 
in snow, hail and flood, but more as Horace painted the de- 
fender of Rome as comiug " with shoulder brightening 
through the stole of cloud." 

But this epistle is more than an oration; it is also a 
repertory of facts; it begins with a statement of facts, 



THE CHEISTLESS WORLD. 249 

namely, that Paul, the writer, was an apostle of Jesus 
Christ by the will ot God, and that the apostle was commis- 
sioned to bear to the Ephesians peace from God our Father. 
Iu the course of the epistle a number of other facts are 
stated, all of which when put into one fact means that 
Christ, who is far above all principality, and power, and 
might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not 
only in this world, but also in that which is to come is the sole 
fountain of spiritual blessing, the only cynosure of the 
world's redemption. 

The text also is a comprehensive statement of historic 
facts. In language the deep .significance of which should 
alarm those who are in their sins and arouse every Chris- 
tian to seek the salvation of the lost, it declares the unhap- 
py condition of those who are in the flesh and out of 
Christ. The declaration is made that such are alien to the 
commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of 
promise, hopeless, and without God in the world. It is of 
these fearful facts that I wish to speak to-day. Let us con- 
sider 

I. THE MEANING OE THE TERMS. 

1. What are we to understand by alienation from the 
commonwealth of Israel? Is it to be supposed that a Jew, 
in a political sense, enjoyed great and exalted privileges? 
Certainly not, because the Davidic empire was never very 
great or important. In its palmiest days it extended only 
from the Medi'erranean to the Euphrates, and from the 
Red Sea to Lebanon. The present sultan of Turkey rules 
over a territory containing 675,920 square miles more than 
that over which Solomon reigned. There was some honor 
belonging to a Roman citizen, honor which was often pur- 
chased at a great price. But in a political sense it was 



250 THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 

more disgraceful than honorable to be recognized as a citi- 
zen of the crumbled Jewish commonwealth. When, there- 
fore, the apostle declared that Christless Ephesians were 
aliens to the commonwealth of Israel he did not refer to 
any political dignity or immunity. 

But Israel was a holy nation, a spiritual common- 
wealth, which unlike the temporal kingdom of David is 
destined to continue forever; it was not actually boly, but 
representatively so. It represented "the Heavenly Jerusa- 
lem, an innumerable company of angels, the general assem- 
bly and Church of the first born, which are written in 
Heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect/ 1 It was 
from this representative spiritual empire that the carnal and 
Christless Ephesians were excluded. Thus the inspired 
Paul virtually taught that all Ephesians, living and dead, 
who were out of Christ were also out of Heaven. 

Not that as much is required of an ignorant heathen 
to account him in Christ, as is required of one who is en- 
lightened. Perhaps obedience to the light that is in him is 
sufficient to regard him as in Christ; but that the heathen 
sinner has no better chance than any other sinner; k4 as 
many as have sinned without law shall perish without law." 
Salvation is for those only wno are in the circle of the spir- 
itual commonwealth. And of cours§ the opportunities of 
salvation greatly increase as men take on themselves the 
yoke of Christ and learn of him 

2. What are we to understand by "strangers to the 
covenants of promise? 1 ' The covenants must have refer- 
ance to some distinguishment pertaining to the common- 
wealth. 

Each ancient empire bequeathed something to the 
that followed. Babylon gave the ultimate grandeur of a 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 2 51 

barbarous civilization. Egypt with other good gave agri- 
culture. Greece gave poetry, philosophy and architecture, 
and Rome gave jurisprudence. But what did the spiritual 
Israel leave to the world? It left nothing if it did not 
leave the covenants of promise, that is the Holy Scriptures. 
In answering the question, "what advantage then hath a 
Jew?" the apostle said "much every way, chiefly because 
unto them were committed the oracles of Grod." 

Nebuchadnezar's palaces have fallen into inextinguish- 
able ruin ; the pyramids are but monuments of fallen great- 
ness. Grecian philosophy is no more. Rome has halted 
and gone down to dust, and the scepter has departed from 
Judah and a law-giver from between his feet; but the Jew- 
ish oracle, divinely given, still speaks to man, revealing God, 
disclosing eternity, assuring redemption and radiant with 
the glory of an everlasting covenant and promise. 

To this covenant the Ephesians were strangers, not be- 
cause they had never heard of it, the apostle does not rest 
the case on such ground, but because they were out of 
Christ, and because they were disobedient to the divine 
voice that spoke within them. They were not included in 
the pale of the promises of Holy Writ. They could lay 
no claim to the blessings temporal and spiritual which are 
assured to the pious, nor the blessings that are pledged in 
Messiah. There was no antidote for their despair. It is a 
fearful thought, but out of Christ a soul is without the lim- 
its of the conditions of the covenant. The universe has 
not a word of promise to whisper to a Christless heart. 

3. What are we to understand by having no hope? 
We are certainly to understand that the moral state of the 
unchristian Ephesians was that of utter hopelessness. 



252 THE CHKISTLESS WORLU. 

They had no well-grounded hope of a future life. The 
Ephesians in thought were Greeks. The Greeks gave their 
philosophy to the Romans. The Roman Cicero called the 
hope of immortality "a surmise of future ages." Seneca 
speaks of it as u that which wise men promise but do not 
prove,' 1 and Pliny declared that neither soul nor body hath 
any more sense after death than before birth." Most of the 
Grecian poets agree that a the dead are sensible of nothing." 
Aristotle held that "death puts an end to all things," and 
Plutarch speaks of u the fabulous hope of immortality." So 
far as concerned a future life, therefore, the Ephesians were 
wanting a well grounded hope; indeed it might be said that 
they had no hope at all. 

They had no hope of empire. Those conquering 
phalanxes that had defied the world, that had swept the sea, 
and Grecian culture which poets had sung had all vanished 
away. Every hope of empire, every promise of glory had 
whirled in the vortex and sunk into oblivion. Not a star 
of hope shone from their political midnight. ' 

Nor did the Christlets Ephesians have any hope in 
thought. The thoughts of Grecian thinkers, the declara- 
tions of scholars had not been realized. One school had 
always been in conflict with another, and reason itself had 
at last lost its very foundations. So completely had every 
proof failed and every promise perished that darkest doubt 
enveloped the Grecian mind. It had settled into stoicism 
or universal skepticism, and to avoid every positive assertion 
the Greek scholar availed himself of some doubtful mode of 
expression, as " it is possible," " it may be so," or that 
darkest and doubtfulest of all utterances " I assert nothing 
not even that I assert nothing." A condition of mind 
more hopeless than this is inconceivable; but such was that 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 253 

of the cultured Ephesian out of Christ. A people alienated 
from Heaven, a people estranged from the divine covenant, 
must be without hope. 

4. What are we to understand by being without God 
in the world? Not that the Ephesians had no God. They 
worshipped the goddess of rivers, she who wore on her 
brow a turret, a nimbus behind her head, the signs of the 
Zodiac on her neck, a lion on each arm, and bees, deer, and 
oxen on her skirt. She was worshipped with pomp and ex- 
pense, with mirth and games, with song and sorcery, and 
her votaries shouted under the marble arches of her sanc- 
tuary "great is Diana of the Ephesians/' Yet they were 
without God in the world. They enjoyed no grateful as- 
surance of love divine, no thought of Providence and Fath- 
erhood. In heart and soul, in the deeper longings of their 
spiritual natures they were Godless. 

In this world of limited knowledge, this world of fear 
and questioning, this world of weeping eyes and broken 
hearts, this world where burdens press, sin smites and death 
pursues us, it were dreadful to be without God. 

Thus the portrait of the unchristian Ephesians is drawn 
by the master hand of the apostle; it were impossible to 
throw upon it a deeper shading. It is the picture of a 
sunless sky, a starless niiu night, and an orphaned soul in 
the midst, Godless, helpless, promiseless, and an outcast 
from Heaven, because out of Christ. 

The apostle does not declare that the Ephesians could 
not be saved until the Gospel was preached to them. It is 
possible that many were saved before they heard of the 
Gospel. Heathens have been converted and lived Christian 
lives who never heard of Christ ; but he does wish to im- 
press us with the thought that men will not be likely to be 



254 THE CHKISTLESS WORLD. 

obedient to the light that is in them until the Gospel has 
been preached to them. Let us consider that 

II. THE TERMS OE THE TEXT DESCRIBE THE MORAL CONDI- 
TION OF ALL THAT PART OF MANKIND WHO A KE, UNCHRIS- 
TIAN. 

1. The world out of Christ is Godless. 

In a tract published by the Free Religious Association, 
a writer, who confesses w " it parahzes my whole spiritual 
nature if I doubt whether Jesus was a man," teaches that 
the god of Maximus Tyrius, who was a god without 
thought or will; the god of Aristotle, who was the divinity 
of nature only; the sovereign of Cleanthes, who was sim- 
ply an executive of law; the First Nature of Seneca, which 
was Fate; the Bacchus of the Stoics, which was Indiffer- 
ence; the Mercury of the Ancients, which was Reason; 
Ceres, a teacher of husbandry; Biana, a huntress; Minerva, 
a warrior, and the god whom Saint Augustine worshipped 
were all one. To say, says that writer, "that different races 
worshipped different gods is like saying that they are 
warmed by different suns. 1 ' Ha\iug read that tract I could 
not resist the conclusion that practically the author himself 
was an atheist; for he who is willing to put deity side In- 
side with Saturn, Jupiter, or Phoebus Apolos, and declare 
they all are one, must be distinguished for his irreverence, 
and an irreverent man is practically without God in the 
world, 

I need not stop to argue the fact that Fetichism has 
no God; Shamanism has no God; and that Dualism is with- 
out a God, at least, in this world; that Pantheism is Athe- 
istic; and that Polytheism also is Godless. But Mohamed- 
anism is also without God, for, though the name of diety is 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 255 

on every lip, yet, of a loving Father, of a Creator conde- 
scending to his creatures, of a God, regarding those crea- 
tures not as as servants, but as sons, and of a God in man 
making man one with God a Moslem is entirely ignorant. 
Mohammedan deism is stolid fatalism. 

Deism, that which is commonly so called, may con- 
cede the existence of a Supreme First Cause, but ignoring 
the only revelation that God has ever made of himself, the 
Deistic conception of Deity is contracted, the Deist's trust 
is superficial, and his belief soon gives way before the as- 
saults of Pantheism and Atheism. 

Naturalism too is Godless. If all organizations are 
nothing -but potent dust. If human souls are simply subli- 
mated substances. If. Deity is nothing but the ultimate 
development of all things, then, there is no God in this 
world, there is no God in Heaven, there is no God any- 
where, and there never can be a God for the poorj longing 
heart of man, for nothing has reached, and probably never 
will reach an ultimate development. 

Nay,more, there are those all around us who profess to 
believe in God; who argue his existence with all the con- 
vincing evidences of theolog}\ yet are without God in the 
world. They hypothecate a Deity whom they do not wor- 
ship, and get eloquent over a piety that they do not possess- 
God is indeed a thought in their mind, but not a living, 
saving, sanctifying power in their souls. Not knowing 
Christ they know not God; not having seen the Son by the 
faith of the Gospel, they do not see the Father. 

Thus go where you will on this green earth, among 
the palms of tlie Indies, or the thronging populations of 
China, or the civilizations of Europe, or the Cathedrals of 
Christian England, or the colleges of free America, and 
practically if not theoretically, you shall find that mankind 
out of Christ is without God ' 1 the world. 



256 THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 

2. The unchristian world to-day is hopeless. 

Hope is a sentiment born in the human soul, but it is 
a sentiment merely unless enthused with the power of a 
living truth. Grod, according to his abundant mercy, hath 
begotten those who are in Christ Jesus unto a lively hope ; 
they, therefore, who are without Christ have not this lively 
hope. Outside of the Gospel what the world calls hope is 
nothing but desire; for instance, the so-called hope, cherish- 
ed by the people of Ningpo, that by paying liberal fees to 
spectral ferrymen, and great bribes to spirit offices of jus- 
tice, a disembodied soul may secure some immunity in the 
world to come, scarcely deserves the name of desire much 
less of hope; and the Budhistic hope that in the life to 
come women will be transformed into men, and men shall 
be absorbed into the unconscious being of their favorite 
idol, is but one step above absolute desperation. 

The Chinaman throws the sable pall of his hopelessness 
even over the sunny things of the present life. Perhaps 
this is what makes him look so sad. I never yet saw a 
Chinaman with a smiling face. It may be that this fact of 
an empires hopelessness explains the reason why so many woo 
an hour's repose in an opium dream. According to a pop- 
ular Chinese tract, "the floating multitude, earth and 
Heaven, wife and children are nothing but vanity, we ex- 
change them all for a lonely mound; Mends seldom meet in 
the winding roads of the yellow streamed Tartarus, and the 
passing shadow leaves no trace behind it." What China 
needs is Christ, Christ to teach the unending personality of 
the human soul. Christ to save from sin and from the tor- 
menting fear of Tartarus. When China shall have been 
redeemed, and shall become Christian, then in that good 
time which is surely coming, Heaven, earth, wife, children 



THE CHRISTLESS WOULD. 257 

will be vanity no longer; then the whoie vast empire will 
possess a hope, which, like an anchor to the soul, shall be 
sure and steadfast, cast within the vail. 

Look at Japan, can the Sintooism which is prevalent 
in those islands, that which deifies the feudal chiefs, teaches 
that creation started without a creator, prescribes a morality 
the stimulus to which is fear, and directs to scriptures that 
contain no promise of the future; can this afford to the peo- 
ple of Japan a reasonable hope even for the world that now 
is, to say nothing of that which is to come? 

Look at Africa; on that dark continent there are -at 
least 100,000,000 people who live without ?n aim, and who 
w ; ll die hopelessly as dies the brute. 

Look at India; that great peninsula which Bishop 
Thompson characterized as "a babel of devils." Can the 
Islamism of India that knows no propitiation, can Bud- 
hism, which declares that punishment must follow trans- 
gression as sure as the cart-wheel follows the ox, can 
Brahmanism, with its caste, slavery, suttee, thugee — can 
any or all of these give hope to the teeming millions of 
India? Hitherto they have not, but they have filled th e 
orient with misery and woe, and having brought blindness 
and gross darkness upon the souls of the Hindoos, those old 
isms are to-day, like great constellations that slowly fades 
away. 

But we need not travel through oriental lands in order 
to discover that the world without Christ is hopeless ; the 
same fearful fact confronts us even in Christian lands, and 
under the shadow of every Christian Church and cathedral* 
Who are the hopeless ones? Who amon'g us are withering 
in their despair? Those who believe in and trust a God of 
infinite perfection? Those who find that Infinite One by 



258 THE CHEISTLESS WORLD. 

tlieir sides, as it were, in the person of the Beloved, forgiv- 
ing their sins, flooding earthly gloom with Heavenly radi- 
ance, arching the troubled Heavens with the bow of promise 
and fringing the future with eternal glory ; are these the 
hopeless, the unhappy ones? By no means; on the con- 
trary, these rejoice and are exceeding glad; but those who 
are wanting m hope, and are smitten with despair are 
doubters and skeptics, those who have cut the cables of 
tlieir faith, and are like rudderless ships at sea, the mere 
playthings of the storm whirled about by every breeze that 
blows. 

All around us are skeptics, agnostics and pessimists; 
men who according to their unbelief have suuken into the 
depths of despair. One doubts whether the Bible is a reve- 
lation from God, therefore whether God ever did, ever will, 
or can, though with softest utterances whisper to the hearts 
of his waiting, listening, longing children. how much 
of hope is cast out of the human soul when man in his un- 
belief sinks into the slough of skepticism. 

The agnostic does not know, he says, that there is a 
God, or a future life, therefore all hope with him is buried 
in indifference; he sinks into the mire a little farther than 
the skeptic. Ask him, brother, you do not think you are 
fatherless and an orphan in the midst of this universal 
magnificence, do you? I do not know; there is some kind 
and helpful hand reached out to help you in your trouble? 
I do not know; beyond this lite of death and darkness there 
surely is sunshine* and immortality? I do not know. 0, 
you can lift yourself out of this mire of unbelief if you 
try? I do not know; and thus he sinks farther and father 
into the hopelessness of his utter indifference. 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 25 ( J 

What unbelief may bring ultimately on the human 
soul it is impossible to tell; but the philosophical unfaith of 
the present time has landed in the dire mud of pessimism. 
This latest boon of all the philosophies is sure that the con- 
ditions of human existence are the most unhappy that can 
possibly be conceived; it sees not a ray of light; it declare* 
that life is not worth living, and advises that the best thing 
for us all to do is to commit suicide at once. Thus unbelief 
has at length struck from the temple of being its founda- 
tion and its dome, leaving nothing but a solitary pillar that 
is tottering to its fall, and is ready to crumble away. 

The Greeks who said " I assert nothing, not even that 
I assert nothing, 11 were no more unhopeful than is the 
christless world to-day. 

3. As were the Ephesians of old, so the unchristian 
peoples of to-day are strangers to the covenants of 
promise. 

In regard to the condition on which the divine prom- 
ises are assured, there can be no difference as to the Jew and 
the Gentile. If God has promised certain blessings and 
privileges, he of course has pledged them to one man on 
exactly the same terms as he has pledged them to another- 
u Of a truth," said Peter, " I perceive that God is no res- 
pecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him 
and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. 11 The 
nations therefore that fear God and work righteousness are 
the people of God, but the nations who do not fear him and 
do not work righteousness are not his people; they are 
strangers to his covenants and promises; they have no part 
in the promise given to Abraham, and no part in the 
covenant made with Israel at Horeh. 



260 THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 

There are two forms of promise, in "the Book of the 
Covenant," the temporal and the spiritual. Is the promise 
made that "blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed 
shalt thou be in the field, blessed shall be the fruit of thy 
body and the fruit of thy ground, and rhe truit of thy cat- 
tle, the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep, 
blessed shall be thy basket and thy store, blessed shalt thou 
be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when 
thou goest out?" it is on condition that thou hearken dili" 
gently unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe 
and do. 

Or does God promise spiritual blessings, such as were 
promised to Abraham and to all nations through him, name- 
ly, pardon of sin, peace with God, the spirit of adoption, 
sonship with God, assurance of sonship, spiritual life, and 
eternal glory. The promise is assured to us on the condition 
of our faith, our faith in the promised Messiah ; and on the 
condition that we manifest our faith by becoming the seed 
of Abraham, not his natural but his spiritual seed, like him 
believing the promise, like him keeping inviolate the man- 
ward side of the covenant, which is in one word, obedience 
to God; hence the blessings of Abraham come on the Gen- 
tiles through Christ, that we might receive the promise of 
the spirit through faith. " If therefore we be Christ's we 
are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. 

In the Old Testament, there is not so far as I know, 
one promise, that is given in such a manner as that one 
who is a stranger to the covenant, or does not heed its 
terms, can claim it with any degree of assurance; and in 
the New Testament, so far as I am able to understand it, 
every precious promise therein pertains to those who are m 
Christ Jesus, or have entered into that spiritual life that 
Christ came to bestow. Outside of obedience to God and 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 26 i 

faith in Christ there is no promise. Look to nature for that 
which can produce spiritual life and fearful disappointment 
will confront you. There is no assurance of pardon, there 
is no peace for a troubled soul, there is no evidence of son- 
ship with God, there is no comforting testimony of a future 
life; where (rod has not spoken by a special revelation. 
Therefore it is by proclaiming the promises that men will 
be induced to comply with the conditions. The engrafted 
word is indeed able to save the souls of men, but it must 
first of all be engrafted. When once a man, deep down in 
his soul, nas been made to feel that the Bible was designed 
and written expressly for him, that it is exactly suited to 
his needs, that it is the voice of his Heavenly Father calling 
him away from sin to a nobler and better life, he is in the 
highway of salvation, but continuing to ignore it in his 
heart, however much he may know of it in his head, he 
continues to be a stranger to the covenant's promise. 

This covenant of promise, this Holy Bible, is the foun- 
dation fact of Christianity, outside of its pale there is no 
Christianity and no Christ, and it is an incontrovertible 
truth that a world without a Bible or a Christ has no spir- 
itual life in it, no assurance of salvation, no Heaven; a 
Christless world is estranged from the covenant. 

4. As the Ephesians out of Christ were excluded from 
the Heavenly Jerusalem, the spiritual commonwealth, so 
the world unchristian is to-day alien from the household of 
faith,and the general assembly and the Church of the First 
Born which are written in Heaven. In short out of Christ 
the world is in Hell; not the Hell that shall be, but a Hell 
that now is, the perdition of unbelief, the distraction and 
misery of unpardoned sin. 

Part of the Christless world is plunged into a Hell of 
poverty. Look for instance at the poor laborer of Japan 



262 THE CHitlSTLESS WORLD." 



performing work that m Christian countries is performed 
by the brute; or look at turkey tilled with beggars; and 
India with hermits gaunt, and hungry, and improvident. 
It has come to pass as the prophet declared, that under the 
degrading effects of sin, man has become a beast of burden, 
drawing iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were a 
cart rope. 

The world out of Christ is, part of it, in a Hell of su- 
perstition; such, for instance, as torments every Celestial, 
lest he should choose an unlucky spot to build on, or to be 
bnried in, and makes him imagine that in August and 
September all the disembodied ghosts of Hades are let loose 
for a raid on the world; or such as drove the Hindoo devo- 
tee to throw himself under the crushing wheels of Jugger- 
naut, and the Hindoo mother to cast her child into the 
greedy waters of the Ganges; and such as terrifies the 
African with the thought that star and cloud, mountain 
and plain, lake and river, beast and insect, are all haunted 
with evil and hurtful influences that must be charmed 
away. 

Nay, right here, under our own eyes, out of Christ is a 
Hell of misery, crime and shame. Everywhere the courts 
are in session, and the Judge is on the bench; everywhere 
the criminal is being led to his dungeon or his doom; 
everywhere are the sons and daughters of guilt who are 
living in infamy, and who will die in despair. 

The world out of Christ is in a Hell that continually 
waxes worse and worse. The tendency of sin is always 
downward. Anciently those who turned away from God 
became idolaters. The Yedas degenerated into the institu- 
tes of Menu, and these into an oriental literature that is now 
defiling everything it touches. Greece degenerated and 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 263 

speedily vanished. Rome became more and more vuhiptu- 
ous and perished. The broad way ends in destruction. 
Indeed the Scripture declares that evil men and seducers 
will Avax worse and worse. In the present century Sabbath 
breakers are bolder than ever. Among certain classes legal 
recognition of the marriage bond is entirely ignored, and 
divorces have become proportionately more numerous; bad 
books were never so abundant as now, robberies and forge- 
ries were never committed on such gigantic scale as during 
the last fifty years. Christianity is indeed marching on. 
but the Hell of sin grows deeper and blacker about the 
lives of evil men and seducers day b} r day. Where this 
burning Hell will end Grod only knows; it may be but the 
kindling of that fiercer fire that shall burn iu the world to 
come. 

I admit that I have drawn a most melancholy picture; 
and yon, dear reader, may caU me a pessimist if you please, 
but such is the moral condition of the world out of Christ. 
It is godless, hopeless, promiseless, heavenless; it is wan- 
dering in starless midnight; it is plunged in moral darkness; 
it is as it were swamped with polar seas; it is torn by sin's 
tornadoes; it is scathed with wrathful lightnings, and it 
grows worse and worse. 

I have no censure to fling at the honest efforts of 
statesmen. I admit that education is a reformatory agent. 
It is true that re'igioas of human invention have 
in them some sublime ideals: and I admit there is some- 
thing iu material n iture that is capable to some extent of 
lifting the soul upward; but the world may be sure that de- 
spite government: and education, and human ethics, and 
the religion of nat«re. history is pregnant with the truth 
that ignoring Christ it grows no better, it waxes worse and 
worse. This brings us to consider that 



261 THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 

III. THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD CAN BE REDEEMED BY PREACH- 
ING CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 

Ephesus was redeemed; they who were sometimes afar 
off were made nigh, so that they were no more strangers 
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of 
the household of God. And not only the Ephesians but 
the Jews and Greeks in all Asia were quickened, the eyes of 
their understanding were enlightened,and they were renewed 
in the spirit of their minds. 

That which promoted Ephesian redemption is sufficient 
to s.ive the whole race of men. We know very well what 
the redemptive agent was, the glorious Gospel of the Son of 
God; that which was proclaimed at Pentecost; that which 
Paul declared during three months, amid disputations, in 
the Jewish synagogue at Ephesus; that which he preached 
for two years from the teacher's desk in the school of Tyranus : 
that which the apostle taught the people from house to 
house; that blessed Gospel, that sovereign balm which has 
saved its millions out of every kindred, and tongue, and 
people and nation. 

True, the Ephesian Church at length lost its first love; 
splendid Christian temples were in the course of time trans- 
formed into Mohammedan mosques; the crescent glittered 
where the cross had shone; a pestilential morass succeeded 
to the place from whence the sea retired, and to-day the 
melancholy old site of Ephesus is a suggestive picture of a 
people who have rejected Christ. Yet the Ephesians once 
dead in trespasses and sins were quickened, they who were 
sometime afar off were made nigh by the blood of Christ; 
he became their peace, broke down the middle wall of par- 
tition, and having slain the enmity reconciled them to God 
by his cross, and for five hundred years the shout of redeem- 
ing love resounded throughout Ionia. 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 265 

Concerning the fullness of the joy of all those saints 
in light who went up from Asia Minor during that five 
hundred years, we are not informed, but what we know not 
now we shall know hereafter. 

We are told how the blessed work was done; in temp- 
tation, with many tears, just as the work is done now on 
our charges at home, and in the broad, slow yielding fields 
of missionary labor: in all humility of mind; not as F men- 
pleasers, not as self-seekers, but serving the Lord by keep- 
ing back nothing profitable, but by preaching the whole 
Gospel, the love of it. and the justice of it. whether men 
will hear or forbear, by teaching publicly and from house 
to house, by preaching repentance toward God and faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Such kind of work patiently and 
prayerfully performed will witness the salvation of men. 

This Gospel may be a stumbling-block to free religion- 
ists, but so has been free religion to many 'who have em- 
braced it Tt may be to the philosopher foolishness, but so 
is all philosophy that is in conflict with his own. Certain 
doctors may declare that the Gospel is a failure, yet some- 
how the Gospel fills an immeasurably large place in the 
human heart. It is not a science, science cannot stir the 
soul as the Gospel stirs it. It is not morality, for morality 
is but a law and knows no salvation. It is Christ crucified, 
Christ the wisdom and the power of God. It was this that 
whet the sword of Luther, magnified the influence of Wes- 
ley and gave success to the Moravian missionaries among 
the Esquimaux, and not until in India was preached the 
Savior who died, not as a martyr, nor as the hero of some 
exciting tragedy, but as a sacrafice for the sins of the whole 
world did the idolater begin to abandon his idolatry, or the 
Brahmin his caste. It has the same sin-destroying and 
hope-inspiring charm everywhere; indeed, the world's 



266 THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 

brightest hope is Christ; Christ crucified, glorified, Christ 
the sovereign inspiration in the conscience of a redeemed 
race. 

That Christ has conquered is no longer an open ques- 
tion. In 1872 a thoughtful traveler declared "the whole 
heathen world is in a transition state. 1 ' In 1873 a promi- 
nent American statesman declared that the labor performed 
by American and British missionaries fully justifies the 
Christian charity that sent them out, and the other day 
Keshub Chunder Sen declared that Christian ideas and in- 
stitutions are taking root on all sides in the soil of India. 
Read the various missionaiy reports, their accounts of suc- 
cessful work now doing are sufficient to fire every human 
heart with unearthly inspiration. The latest missionary 
report of the Methodist Episcopal Church assures us that 
Japan is asking for Christian teachers, and the children on 
the streets are singing Jesus loves me. It says that in the 
city of Titian, where Confucius wrote and labored, Christ is 
victor. In Africa the Gospel is winning its way. India is 
quickening into life, the valley of dry bones is in commo- 
tion; Christianity is favorably impressing the better classes 
in the land of Montezuma; as for Italy the Gospel is surely 
revolutionizing that land of song, and its spiritual future is 
brighter than its smiling sky. Indeed Europe is brighten- 
ing into a flame of Christian zeal; Scandinavia, demands to 
know the doctrine of the mighty Savior; Germany is gath- 
ering her forces, and the mountains of Switzerland are 
echoing with the song of full salvation. The question is 
no longer what of the night? but what of the day? How 
long ere the risen sun shall have reached its zenith? Christ 
has conquered. 



THE CHRISTLESS WORLD. 267 

But the world is not all saved yet, nor will it be until 
Christendom shall be ablaze with heavenly zeal. The mil- 
lennium to-morrow, means full consecration to-day ;in differ- 
ence to-day means indefinite postponement of the worlds 
redemption. The world's salvation is in the hands of the 
church; neglect is failure; nay, wilful neglect is crime; 
the blood of 700,000,000 will God require, at our hands. 

Can I think of a world without Christ without feeling 
my soul stirred to its very depths with anxious pity? 
Can I look into the sorrowful lace of him who trod the 
wine-press alone and not feel my purest sympathies awak- 
ened ? Can I love my Divine Master of the tearful eye, the 
liberal hand and the self-sacrificing spirit, and not be a mis- 
sionary ? It were impossible, I would go to the ends of the 
earth for his sake, and in tears and prayers consecrate the 
last penny of my property, yea surrender life itself, gladly, 
if I might thereby promote the honor of his kingdom in 
the world. When we shall have succeeded in lifting up the 
everlasting doors of this broad earth, when the king of 
glory, like the light of a day, that can know no evening, 
shall have come in and taken possession, then shall we see 
the travail of our souls and be satisfied. 

May the time be hastened when there shall be no more 
strangers and foreigners, but all the peoples of earth shall 
be fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of 
God, and built upon the foundation of the apostle and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief corner stone 
shall become a habitation of God through the spirit. 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED- 



By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted ; but it is over- 
thrown by the mouth of the wicked.— Prov. xi, 11. 

It is natural to love the place of our birth ; with regret- 
fulness and pain one tears himself from his native soil. 
Wild, and to many uninviting, may be the region where 
first he drew the breath of life, yet it is the dearest spot on 
earth to him; softer gales may smile, fairer flowers may 
bloom and a richer landscape spread about him, yet it will 
not be home. 

But wa cannot all and always linger about the place of 
our birth. It would have been a poor thing for the world 
and for humanity, if the race had remained in Eden. The 
sword that drove out our first parents from those rosy 
bowers of rest was a merciful one; it is still driving us; by 
the stern law of necessity, or that stranger one of greed, 
mankind are migratory like the birds. It is thus that the 
world is discovered and the earth subdued, uninhabited re- 
gions are filled with people, the wilderness is made to blos- 
som, cities are built and man triumphs, and thus, by the 
aw of self-interest we become attached to new localities. 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 269 

The rapidly increasing population of this continent affords 
a fine illustration of this truth. Americans are a heteroge- 
neous people, but with all their heterogeneity they are 
gradually melting into a homogeneous nation. We are 
English, Celtic, German, Slavic, Hindoo, Indian and yet 
American. The newly arrived emigrant soon learns to 
sing, 

" I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills." 

Wherever men congregate society necessarily exists. 
Each person in a community is "endowed by his Creator 
with certain inalienable rights," and accompanying these 
rights are certain corresponding obligations; hence the 
question of individual responsibility to society, and of so- 
ciety to the individual is an ever expanding one. It is a 
question that grows with the experiences of years, and con- 
tinues growing, not only until it involves the question of 
the greatest good to the greatest number, but until by a 
perfect solution of every problem in government there shall 
have been secured the greatest possible happiness for the 
entire mass cf the governed. 

Local politics are sometimes sneered at, but to the par- 
ties immediately concerned, the doings of a county board, 
or a common council may be of more importance than all 
the plans and plots of foreign courts or diplomats. Yet 
there are those who know all about the charge on Tel el 
Kebir, or the last quarrel in the French chambers, and are 
happy, professedly, to be ignorant of what their own alder- 
men are doing officially. They make a distinction by say- 
ing one is news, the other is politics; it is news they want, 
not politics. 

Indeed, it has come to be supposed that moral or re- 
ligious principles have nothing to do with politics. It is 



^70 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 



said that religion is for the Church, the minister, the wo- 
men, the children, and morals are for the family, the school, 
the teacher, but politics is only for parties. So it has come 
to pass that religious men quietly suffer a political wrong, 
and endure political lying and thieving because, forsooth, 
the science of politics is excused from the sphere of morals 
and religion. For one, I abominate the doctrine, and be- 
lieve that morality and religion are the only forces that can 
purify the public, or the officiary of the public. Those 
forces should touch and control the home, society, business, 
parliaments, county boards, and common councils. Until 
righteousness shall thus control and mould politics, politics 
local and national, will always be a mud puddle of filth and 
corruption; for u by the blessing of the upright the city is 
exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the 
wicked." 

Fortune has smiled on us and cast our lot in one of the 
most charming and promising little cities of the great com- 
monwealth of Wisconsin. The surrounding country is 
rich and fertile; the streets are well shaded and graded; our 
homes are cozy, convenient, and many of them elegant; the 
stores are numerous and do a thriving business; the facto- 
ries cause the blood of industry to leap in the veins of the 
people; the schools are filled with as healthy and hopeful a 
brood of boys and girls as ever stirred the din and tumult 
of a playground; the people are social and intelligent; in- 
deed, we are righteously proud of our little munici- 
pality. 

It is a vital question what may secure, and what will 
prevent our prosperity ? The first part of this question is 
easily answered. We know that industry, commerce, in- 
telligence and morality are potent factors in the exaltation 
of any community; but the things that prevent our weal 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 271 



and welfare we are inclined to forget or ignore. I desire, 
therefore, to refer to some *of those things which, in the 
mouth of the wicked overthrow the city. 

I. THE MOUTH OF INFIDELITY WORKS DAMAGE TO THE CITY. 

Infidels say throw away the Old Testament, for the 
geology of Genesis does not correspond with the last born 
of scientific opinion; it does not teach that men have been 
developed from apes; the Mosaic code is not perfect; many 
of the characters mentioned in the Bible were bad men; it 
tells of Avars sanguinary and cruel; some ol its poetry is 
hyperbole; away with it! it is not fit to be read by our 
children. 

But that Old Testament is the oldest book of antiquity; 
it truthfully sets forth the Mosaic theory of the order of 
creation; it teaches the dignity of man; its laws were hap- 
pily suited to the peoples of that age; it tells of good men 
as well as bad; it tells of patriotism, courage and self-sacri- 
fices; its inspired songs outlast the muse of Greece; its 
history is connected with the present by the golden bands 
of a common hope and a common nature; and its oracle 
has outlived the Delphic and flashed its truth over the ever 
changing centuries. Why then destroy the Old Testa- 
ment? It is at least as worthy of continuance as any other 
good book. 

Ingersoll frankly declared that he "hates" that old 
Book; he is one of those who think that its influence is 
demoralizing; yet. lie insists that the race has progressed 
intellectually and morally, or as he expresses it from a dug- 
out to a monitor; from a bit of carved bark to an Astor 
library; from a ye 'low daub to the masterpiece of a Rem- 
brandt; from a notched stick to the sculptured marble of a 
Praxiteles: from the bushman's skull to the skull of a 



272 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 

modern philosopher, and the world admits this fact of 
progression; but this old Bible has been opened on millions 
of altars while the world has been moving on; progression 
has been greatest where the hallowed influences of the Holy 
Scriptures have been the greatest felt. 

Infidels also say down with the New Testament, for it 
contains nothing that is really new, every moral precept 
therein, they say, was written long before a disciple wrote 
it. But would you therefore destroy that Book? Would 
you annihilate each new book that contains an old truth? 
But that New Testament tells of a better life, suggests a 
moral preparation, requires purity of heart, shows a perfect 
man as an example, a teacher who taught not pride but 
meekness, not revenge but forgiveness, not friendship 
merely but philanthropy; he taught that to do a good deed 
tor a needy soul is the same as to do it for Grod ; he taught 
repentance not sin, law not anarchy. 

Infidelity says away with the Book! away with Christ! 
away with Christianity! But to do away with these is to 
do away with the moral forces that underlie them. Infi- 
delity means nihilism, it means selfishness, it means haugh- 
tiness, it means hopelessness, it means the despair of anni- 
hilation. Property, law, life would be worth nothing, even 
in this beautiful city, if the moral restraints of Christian- 
ity were driven out and unbelief were to be regnant in indi- 
vidual hearts. 

He therefore is an enemy to the moral well-being of 
the place who slyly broadcasts the poison of his infidelity; 
he blinds men to the truth of their amenability and robs 
them of moral restraint; he helps to make monsters of his 
neighbors; he diligently sets to work influences in the 
minds of the masses which ultimately must work out their 
moral ruin; and with his mouth he overthrowetli the 
city. 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 273 



II. THE MOUTH OF SLANG HAS A DEMORALIZING POWER. 

By slang I mean the langu ige of vulgar wit, the jargon 
o^ billingsgate, that which is called p^ddlar's French or St. 
Giles 1 Greek; wj hear it e\ r ery day and are made the un- 
willing pupils of its low humor; its genius consists in call- 
ing things by their wrong -lamesthus, it calls a face a mug; 
it calls a head a nob, an accomplice it calls a pal, a carousal 
it designates as a spree, a master it calls a boss, to move is 
to vanuse, to be drunken is to be slewed, to pay mmey is 
to bleed, to vanut or boast is to blow, to rim away is to 
skip; some of the newspapers are flooded with this "bosh 11 
of the streets; they would not pander to such u clap-trap 1 ' 
if it were not popular; its popularity indicates the baseness 
into which many of the masses are sunken. 

Now, such slang cannot do a community any good; it 
is not only an illegitimate use of words, but it is the lan- 
guage of deceit, the cant of hypocrisy, the flash of false- 
ness, the mark of bad breeding and the index of moral in- 
difference Let your child, uncorrected, pick up and use 
such billingsgate, and he will soon learn to swear. Slang is 
the first degree of profanity; given over to slang he will 
steadily advance along the line of lawlessness; indifferent 
to the laws of men, soon he will scorn the law divine; he 
will decieve you indeed with mock solemnity as readily as 
he showers you with his gutter gibberish ; and his flippant 
use of a low and vulgar vocabulary will be the flood that 
shall sweep away all his moral seriousness; then look out, 
for he has already graduated into that class which is 
called dangerous. 

What is seriousness ? Seriousness is not solemnity, but 
it is that thoughtful, manly spirit which will not give way 
to incessant jesting or false pretense, but that which in- 
tends all it says, aud finding that life is full of earnest mean- 
ing, and not a thin film of soapsuds, refuses to be light and 
empty as the bubble that dances in the air. 



274 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 



The man of slang is not only coarse and vulgar, but he 
is an infidel of the rankest kind; he throws an atmosphere 
of levity around fchiugs that are in themselves the most 
solemn and sacred; thus lie talks unfeelingly of the dead 
as having passed in their cheek; unmoved by the beauties 
of moral principle he takes a sort of pride in being what 
is commonl}' called a tough; having done the deed that 
makes him a criminal before the law, his greatest ambition 
is u to die game," and fearless of the consequences of sin, 
heedless of the promise of future puniehment for the sinner 
he speaks of perdition as being a "hot-house," and of God 
as being u the boss." 

People who are wanting in seriousness are a dangerous 
element in society; they cover truth with slang; they reject 
and antagonize the most sacred claims of religion; they 
mock and slander morality; with their evil communications 
they corrupt the good manners of many who would like 
to be decent; there ought to be, in my judgment, a law de- 
claring that slang, as well as profanity and slander, is an 
offense in society. 

The city that is made up of a population of slang- 
slingers is already morally overthrown. If ever it should 
grow and prosper it will be because these have stepped aside 
and made room for a more serious and reliable class. Your 
successful manufacturers and merchants are serious, though 
social and pleasant men; your industrious yeomanry are 
serious-minded, thoughtful and contented men; your most 
respectable classes are made up of serious, earnest, contem- 
plative people who feel that responsibility is resting upon 
them; but your hilarious, harum-scarum, irresponsible peo- 
ple are your prison peers and vagabonds, your peddlars of 
slang and princes of levity. The age, societv, needs more 
seriousness and less slang. The mouth of the wicked is 
overthrowing the city. 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 275 

III. THE MOUTH OF INEBRIACY IS A MENACE AND A DES- 
TRUCTION TO ANY COMMUNITY. 

It is an important question are we Americans a happy 
people? Certainly we ought to be. With a country so 
vast and varied, so rich in agricultural possibilities, so abun- 
dant in mineral wealth, so busy and prosperous in com- 
merce and manufacture. With part of our abundance go- 
ing to bless the people of other lands; with a population 
increasing at the rate of a million a year, with railroads 
stretching in all directions, with free schools and great col- 
leges, with free speech and free franchise, with a glorious 
history and a brave people we ought to be very happy, but 
we are not. 

Tens of thousands of our fellow citizens are in want of 
food, clothes and shelter; tens of thousands can neither read or 
write; the country is overrun with criminals; the peoples 
hard earned money is wasted; tens of thousands are insane 
or idiotic; thousands upon thousands are each year dropped 
into premature graves; the heart is full of sorrow; in every 
house there is a skeleton; the cause of humanity and Re- 
ligion is impeded. The Americans are not really a happy 
people. 

What is the cause of this unhappiness? I Avill tell you, 
strong drink. We swallow about a hundred million gal- 
lons of distilled spirits, and eight million barrels of beer 
every year, which costs $800,000,000. We pour this deluge 
of damuation into our stomachs, and throw away every 
year more than the value of the meat we eat, and the cost 
of all our manufactures, and the value of all our forest pro- 
ductions, and the value of all our mxrket gardens, and the 
vjiue of all our orchards, and reap a harvest of ignorance, 
pauperism, crime and sorrow. 



276 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 

The habit of strong drink is a fearful incubus on the 
resources of this nation; we could better afford once each 
decade to reduce all our fields to ashes and burn up all our 
granaries than keep up year after year the damning deso- 
lation of intemperance. 

It is said that during the war this nation lost a million 
of its citizens, and that eight billion dollars were expended 
or invested .Every fifteen years strong drink kills a mil- 
lion of the children of Columbia, and every ten years costs 
enough to cancel every dollar of the war debt, general, 
State and county. If we could give up Alcohol, and instead 
engage in civil war once every fifteen years we should make 
something by the change. 

The demon that is doing such devastating work in the 
nation generally is busy in the commonwealth of Wiscon- 
In 1881 there were 7300 prisoners in the county jails, and 
8250 in the police stations and lock-ups of the 
State. We are burdened with 1800 paupers and 1800 in- 
sane people. The State pays annually hundreds of thous- 
ands of dollars for their support. Four fifths at least of the 
crime, pauperism and insanity of the State are produced di- 
rectly or indirectly by intemperance. It is estimated that 
in 1900 we shall have at least 3200 insane persons to pro- 
vide for; the buildings to accomodate them will cost $3,000,- 
000, and the charge to the public for their support will be 
$640,000 annually, a burden which the State will find most 
difficult to bear, and then it will go on, ever deepening and 
increasing. What can be done to arrest this onflowing 
avalanche of burden? I answer, prohibit the use of strong 
drink within the bounds of the commonwealth of Wiscon- 
sin, and in twenty years two thirds of the burden will be 
scattered. 

The war has been carried into this little municipality. 
There are in this city twenty-one saloons, three drug stores, 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 277 

and one bottling establishment besides breweries, where in- 
toxicating drink is sold. The twenty-one saloons at 
least are doing a thriving business, for they can afford to 
pay rent, government license, and a local license of two 
hundred dollars. A larger congregation could be 
found in those saloons than could be found in all the 
churches on a Sunday evening. I wish I had local statis- 
tics, but this city is much the same as the rest of the 
world — well, in 1870 the wages paid for labor in all the 
manufacturing industries of the country were $775,584,313 
and that same year there was expended for intoxicating 
liquors $619,588,371. I have no doubt that the sum paid 
for labor — and the sum paid for liquor in this city will 
bear about the same proportion. I do not mean to say 
that 6-7 of the entire earnings of the laboring classes are 
spent for alcoholic beverages, but that if the money ex- 
pended for all kinds of industry is represented by seven, 
then the money spent by all classes rich and poor, for 
drink would be represented by six. 

Thus one can easily see that under the damning disci- 
pline of drink, business and industry are threatened and 
must eventually go under. What then shall we do ? Let 
the devil have his way unresisted ? Be content while our 
young men are wasting under the spell of intemperance? 
Bid for a population from other places ? Must others come to 
supersede those already here? I say no! While we wel- 
come each newcomer, particularly if he comes as the sworn 
enemy of rum, let us shut the saloons, let us save our 
brothers if we can. No boy is safe, no family is safe, no 
business is safe, so long as intemperance reigns. Each 
saloon is a school of slang, a hot-bed of infidelity, a nursery 
of crime, a rendezvous of idlers; there ignorance is encour- 
aged, intellect is blasted, hopes are ruined, homes are deso- 
lated, youth is debauched, law is violated, and life is 



278 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 



endangered. Shut them up! We must overthrow them or 
they will overthrow us. Whisky, in the long run, is too 
much for any man or any community. 

IV. THE MOUTH THAT USES TOBACCO EXERTS NO GOOD IN- 
FLUENCE UPON A CITY. 

Tobacco is a plant the botameal name of which is 
" nicotiana tobacum/ 1 a species of night siiadn. It is not 
generally distributed by nature, but man works heroically 
to make it cosm >politan, a plant for all zones, a solace for 
all classes and all sorrows. Nature, however, seems to be 
in perpetu il conflict with man in his endeavors; for instance, 
the seed changes but man selects; weeds in the surface soil 
choke it, but man burns the surface; drouth or dryness kills 
but he waters; cold destroys but he covers the plant with 
straw; caterpillars three inches long are sent to devour it, 
but man madly pinches the worm between his fingers; na- 
ture endeavors to kill the leaf by developing a flower, but 
man resorts to topping ; nature tries again to destroy the 
leaf by means of suckers, but man maliciously plucks them 
off; again she attacks the plant with her moist vapors, but 
man builds expensive dry-houses; once more she attempts 
to pole-burn the weed, but man resorts to ventilation. Na- 
ture endowed tobacco with an exceeding unpleasant taste, 
as if by this means she would foil man, but he dips it 
into molasses, or a licorice paste, or a decoction of figs, or 
glycerine; finally, ready for use, and used as man commonly 
uses it, man's own nature rebels, the brain says I am dizzy, 
throw it away! the stomach says I am faint, cast it out! She 
throws off the poison, and the yellow steaming vomit on 
the floor seems to say, yon nasty fellow! then nature is 
convulsed, and cold and clammy, and seems to say never 
impose on me again in that way or I will kill you! 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 279 

But man is born to be a conqueror, he will conquer to- 
bacco or die in the attempt. I fear, however, that he will 
die in the attempt. To-day nicotiana tobacum is the victor. 
We have read of the triumphant march of the American 
army into Mexico, and of the German march into Paris, but 
these are nothing conipaied with the grand march of the 
tobacco plant into the mouths of the people, it is moving 
in by battalions, by regiments, by divisions, by huuureds of 
thousands of hogsheads arid acres. England (I learn from 
an article in report of State Board of Health for the year 
1881) in 1857, consumed 32,856, 913 pounds, but in 1880 
she got rid of 50,000.000 pounds. In 1870 the United 
States disposed of 262,735,341 pounds, and in 1880 she 
opened her mouth while 473,107,573 pounds of tobacco 
marched into it, Just think of it, 1,300,000,000 cigars are 
stuck between the teeth of Uncle Sam's children every year. 
We conquer tobacco by holding it with our teeth or rolling 
it in sweet morsels under our tongues, and pay an enor- 
mous tax tor the privilege. 

But think of the enemy that we have to contend with 
with our mouth; it is a rank poison. The same article de- 
clares that tobacco is composed of three ingrediants, an 
alkaloid called nicotiana, one drop of which will kill a dog; 
tobacco camphor, the properties of which are not fully 
understood, and an oil, so pungent that one drop on the 
tongue of a cat will throw her into convulsions and cause 
death in ten minutes. It produces a functional disturbance 
of the heart, lungs and brain; it produces feebleness of 
mind, apoplexy; it causes cancer; those who use short pipes 
or cigars are liable to a cancerous affection of the lips. I 
honestly believe that a glass of beer is less objectionable 
than a quid or a smoke. 

This insidious foe is in our midst; it has unfurled its 
banners in thirty- two different places in this fair city; it 



280 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 

has taken possession of store and saloon, factory and 
church; it throttles the illiterate and the scholar, the poor 
and the rich, the aged and the young; the breath of our 
boys is foetid with the f amj of tobacco, and soiuetiuies the 
pulpit has been desecrated with the quid. In the form of 
snuif, and shag, and plug, and pigtail, and cigar, andcigaret 
it confronts us, invading our nerves, corrupting our blood, 
cankering our lungs, irritating our hearts, disturbing our 
brains, creating a thirst for strong drink, wasting our wages 
or our fortune, and deranging the morals of our citizens 
generally. The board of health ought to declare it a nuis- 
ance; the legislature should pronounce it a thief. 

These four foes, infidelity, slang, inebriacy and tobacco 
are in our midst. The pulpit fights the first; tue free schools 
wrestle with the second, temperance societies antagonize 
the third, and all ought combine to annihilate the fourth. 

By the blessing of the upright, it is said, the city is 
exalted. If a community is fortunate enough to possess 
among its citizens a few sterling, upright men and women, 
they, by all m^ans, should be its leading spirits. 

When Alexander the Great was marching through 
Persia, his discouraged soldiers resolved to proceed no 
farther, because their way was blocked with ice and snow, 
but Alexander put spirit into his army by leaping from his 
horse and going forward, axe in hand, to break for himself 
a path through the ice; his army soon followed him. So 
society catches the spirit of its leaders. Such is the power 
of example that people of influence aid greatly both in 
making the sentiment and in creating the character of com- 
munities. 

Because the leaders of Tarsus aspired to crown that 
city with metropolitan honors, exerting their personal in- 
fluence to win for it a good reputation, encouraged within 



THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 281 



its bounds schools of science mid art and general culture, 
and endeavored to render its residents loyal to Rome, pe- 
culiar privileges were conferred upon it, and even Paul was 
proud to be one of its citizens; lie said "I am a man which 
am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Oilicia, a citizen of no mean 
city." 

One of the most solemn duties of a free country or 
community is that of choosing its officers and creating its 
leaders; it involves the exaltation or degradation of the 
whole, and it tells sooner or later on the destiny of society. 
A little printed ballot in the hands of a freeman is wonder- 
fully suggestive, it not only tells the names of certain can- 
didates for office, but it also tells the moral character of the 
man who deposits it. One cannot vote for narrowness and 
not be narrow himself, or for corruption and not be corrupt, 
or for wickedness and not himself be unrighteous. Your 
ballot is the expression of your feelings and desires, it is the 
profile of your moral self, by that little act of voting you 
exalt the city and help to add dignity to citizenship, or you 
surrender society to be overthrown by barbarians and van- 
dals. 

When the people shall be so well instructed in moral 
principle as that, the} T will choose men of good morals and 
good sense to represent them in council and in Congress, 
the evils that are now afflicting society will begin to fly 
away before the benediction of their noble endeavors, but 
until society is willing to vote for good men it must pay 
the price of its folly. 

The reformation of society, therefore, implies first of 
all the reformation of the individual. But how shall this 
be done? Not by talk altogether; lectures and sermons 
may be good in their place, but of themselves they are in- 
adequate; when duty is made evident we need something 



282 THE MOUTH OF THE WICKED. 

more potent than theory or argument; it is then that 
we need the heroism of an indomitable purpose. 

The fact is, we are infidel, we crawl crab-like in the 
mud of slang, we are drunken and are addicted to filthy 
habits, because unwilling to break away; with truth on 
every hand, with culturing influences pressing upon as from 
every quarter, unbelief and uncleanness are not necessary, 
they are moral conditions that are preferred by indocile 
minds. We all know better than we do; what we need is a 
little individual heroism mixed with moral resolution. 

Righteousness is indeed the only power that can exalt 
a nation or an individual; but righteousness is not attained 
at once, it does not grow over the soul likeJonah's gourd in 
a single night, it is the result of an effort of a life time. If 
therefore, yonng friend, you have any respect for yourself, 
or desire to bless the generation in which you live, then 
take the first step toward moral excellence, though you 
should never be able to attain unto its fullness; throw away 
that cigaret, expel that filthy quid from yonr mouth, dash 
the intoxicating cup from your lips, drop that slang, cease 
that profanity and turn away from that unbelief which 
each day is helping to degrade you more and more, and, no 
doubt, the first step will make you more confident to take 
the second. Let the text be your motto — u By the blessing 
of the upright, the city is exalted; but it is overthrown by 
the mouth of the wicked," 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 



But some man will say, how are the dead raised up ? and with 
what body do they come ?— I Cor. 15, 35. 

Every man, woman and child is linked, by nearly two 
hundred generations, to eternity. We have descended from 
an uncountable ancestry, only two of whom have evaded 
death; and pressed by a thousand forces we are each of us 
hastening toward that dreadful termination. 

In a century we shall have been swept utterly from 
the stage; in fifty years scarcely a remembrance of us will 
be left; in twenty-five years our generation will be superan- 
uated; even so short a period as a decade will witness sad 
havoc in this congregation ; yes, in five years many will 
have done their last work, and of some of us it is probably 
true that this year we die. With such a destiny confront- 
ing us, how pertinent the question, if a man die shall he 
live again? 

Man cannot be stoical when mortality is before him, 
he may postpone the answer to this question but the 
question gathering force from every funeral dissolution, 



284 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 

sorrow, pain and fleeting hour conies back with over- 
whelming intensity, refusing to be crowded ou" by any 
philosophy of annihilation and demanding an affirmative 
reply. 

To this important inquiry the soul answers, yes! al- 
though reason may reply, no! Man therefore is in perpet- 
ual agitation until the claims of immortality are fully sat- 
fied; not until then is it possible that meditation on death 
can be painless. We are unhappy until this decision is 
reached, and the soul is furnished for a world to come. 

The revealed sublime truth of a resurrection is one of 
the many evidences of a continuance of existence after 
death. We propose, therefore, to consider this doctrine, and 
also the body in which the ressurrected will appear, "for 
some men will say, how are the dead raised up, and with 
what body do they come? Notice then 

I. THERE WILL BE A RESURRECTION. 

1. It is inferred. Stand on the sea shore, gather a 
handful of sand, the small grains fall through your fingers, 
a moment more and the inrolling tide buries them beneath 
its foaming bosom, there is no life, no beauty, yet, yonder 
perfect mirror that hangs on the palace wall, reflecting 
every form of life, every shade of color was made from those 
lifeless sands, the change seems incredible, it is true never- 
theless; who knows therefore but the few grains composing 
our dust may, under the hand of a divine artisan, or by 
some mysterious elaboration of nature's forces, reflect the 
image of immortality in the eternal world? 

A servant, it is said, received from his appreciative mas- 
ter a present of a silver cup; accidentally it fell into a large 
vessel of aquafortis, or nitric acid; it soon disappeared, of 
course; every trace was gone, and the servant sorrowed 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 285 

over his misfortune; but at last the master came and pre- 
cipitated the silver from the solution, and the silversmith 
fashioned it into a cup more chaste and beautiful than the 
original. So is it not impossible, after we have fallen into 
our graves, and death has obliterated every remembrance on 
earth of us, after surviving friends have sorrowed for our 
departure, that omnipotence shall touch the forms that con- 
tain our dust, and command into his presence our bodies, 
more perfect and beautiful, honored, spiritualized, immor- 
talized, glorified? 

It is said that the mummies that come from the Egyp,- 
tian necropolis have not all been preserved according to the 
same method, for the vitals of some have been removed- 
while in other cases the vitals remain entire. It has been 
supposed by certain chemists that the latter are bodies of 
criminals, upon whom was performed a suspension of life 
with the intention of restoring them at some future time; 
but that the method by which the suspension and revivis- 
cence were produced is now a lost art. If the ancient 
Egyptians could thus kill and make alive again, shall we 
suppose that the possibility so to do is beyond the reach of 
modern science? But if science can accomplish so much, 
why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that 
God can raise the dead? 

That eminent Sweedish chemist, Dr. Grusselbach, spent 
years in an endeavor to recover the lost art of resuscitation, 
and was successful, so it is said, at least so far as to benumb 
a snake, rendering it hard as a stone and brittle as glass,and 
after preserving it in this state for several years he restored 
it to life ; indeed for fifteen years this animal underwent 
through the experiments of the chemist a series of deaths 
and resurrections. Now, if a man can accomplish 
such wonders, even calling life into a petrifaction, is it im- 
possible that omnipotence shall rebuild the dissolved man- 
sion of a departed soul? 



286 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 



The question is, does Grod in nature ever work according 
to such a plan ? Not only does the naturalist assure us 
that such is the case, but such a modus operandi has come 
under our own observations. For instance, take the com- 
mon but beautiful illustration of the silk-worm. It envel- 
opes itself in a silky web, simultaneously its form and its 
nature undergo a marvelous change, from a busy caterpillar 
it is transformed into an inactive unconscious chiysalis, re- 
quiring neither nutriment nor sunshine, and encoffined in 
its little cocoon it continues in this unconscious state from 
two weeks to two months, but at length supplied with 
wings, it bursts through its self-made sepulchre and soars 
forth a new creature, into the experiences of a new exist- 
ence, and amid the scenes of a new creation. 

Such analogies do not, it is true, intimate that man is 
immortal, but they show that an insect passes from one 
state of existence to another, and they suggest that a 
transformation and a translation need not be impossible to 
man, but that he may sometime come from the coffin and 
the grave to enter in triumph another sphere, and to pur- 
sue a nobler destiny. 

But an objector may say that such comparisons are not 
parallels; they are but suspensions of animation, while death 
seems to be an actual termination; well, then, let us con- 
sider the vegetable; "that which thou so west is not quick- 
ened except it die.' 1 Each seed sown, unless it lose its 
external contour and see corruption, is inadequate to future 
development and fruition; the decaying acorn is the em- 
bryo of the future forest, and the dying corn is the germ 
of the well-filled granary; this decay is but the removal of 
the obstructions that are in the way of the upspringing 
life. A beautiful vase, closely sealed, was found in a mum- 
my pit in Egypt; it contained peas which had been 
coffined in the vase and entombed in the pit probably for 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 287 

three thousand years; on the 4th clay of June, 1844 they 
were planted, and at the end of thirty days showed signs of 
life; they grew; though buried for centuries they had lost 
none of their vital power. If the life principle of a simple 
pea remains thus undestroyed, what shall we hope for a 
human being who has gathered all his living force from the 
deathless forces of the universe? 

Thus when we consider those transformations that ap- 
pear in art, in science, and in nature, it is reasonable to in- 
fer for man a ressurrection. 

2. L is revealed. Notwithstanding the suggestive 
analogies to which all usion has been made,the doctrine of a cor 
poreal ressurrection, among ancient and modern theologians 
and philosophers, has found many antagonists. It scarcely 
entered into the polemics of the ante-christian world. While 
the Pharisees silently accepted the doctrine the Saducees 
openly denied it. Even at the time of Christ, while some 
believed a many doubted. 11 For teaching this new doctrine 
as it was said to be, the apostles were arraigned before 
courts of examination. By the learned literati of Athens 
it was supposed that Paul recommended to the Pantheon a 
new divinity when he spoke of this doctrine, so ignorant 
were the}' of the idea of a resurrection. Pliny says it is 
an impossible thing to call back the dead. Celsus calls the 
hope of a resurrection the hope of worms. The Shasters do 
not contain it; Confucius never grasped the thought; phil- 
osophy never discovered it in all its wanderings; science 
never dictated its laws; poetry never found it in any of its 
flights, and to the Koran it would have been unknown were 
it not for the Cross. It is a truth peculiar to the Christian 
revelation. With this light shining through the damp, 
death-darkness, reason discovers in the grave an avenue to 
eternity. 



288 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 

Let us then look into this revelation; first, in so far as 
it appears in the Old Testament; there we learn that Joh, 
though through a mist of tears, could see the dim outline of 
the resurrection body, for he said, "in my flesh shall I see 
God. 11 Isaiah, whose thought was in perpetual revolution 
about Jesus Christ said, "He will swallow up death in vic- 
torv, thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body 
shall they arise; awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust. 
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast 
out her dead." Hosea, concerning God in his power and 
goodness, declared, " I will ransom them from the power of 
the grave, I Avill redeem them from death. death I will 
be thy plagues! grave I will be thy destruction!" 

But it is in the New Testament that this doctrine is most 
lucid; in the Old we see through a glass darkly, in the New- 
face to face Unlettered fishermen like Peter proclaimed 
Christ and the resurrection, and well versed philosophers 
like Paul declared "the dead shall be raised incorruptible." 
To enumerate the texts were unnecessary, it is sufficient to 
remark that they teach a resurrection of the just and the 
unjust, and that Hymeneus and Philetus, who taught that 
the resurrection has already passed, are declared to be in 
error. Thus the Bible, if indeed it be a revelation from 
God, proves most forcibly the truth of a resurrection; it 
shows that the shattered pillar may be rebuilt, that the lost 
ship may be recovered from the billow, that the broken harp 
may be retuned to sweeter melodies, that though the flower 
is crushed its fragrance may be preserved, and that death is 
not an eternal sleep but the gateway to everlasting life. 

We have seen that a resurrection may be inferred from 

the facts that are about us, and that it has been revealed in 
the Holy Scriptures; nor ought we fail to notice that 



THE KESUKIIECTIOJST BODY. 289 



, 3. It has been demonstrated. If but one person has 
been raised from the dead, the truth of the resurrection is 
demonstrated. There is abundant evidence that at least one 
person, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, did actually come 
forth from the grave aud carry away the gates of death 
forever, for Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose 
again the third day, according to the Scriptures; he was seen 
of Cephas, then of the twelve, after that of above five hun- 
dred brethren at once, then of James, then of all the apos- 
tles, and finally of Paul as of one born out of due time. 
Christ therefore is risen from the dead and become the first 
fruits of them that slept. Nor can the testimony of these 
witnesses be refuted, for they spoke of what' they knew, 
they had the testimony of their senses, they were not a 
credulous class, they did not believe nor even venture a 
statement until they had seen nor had they any reason for 
imposition, but on the contrary, every motive of self-inter- 
est required that they should tell the truth. If therefore we 
can believe the testimon}^ of any witness we must believe 
the statements, of these apostles in regard to the fact that 
Christ arose from the dead. 

But more, the testimony of the disciples was corrobo- 
rated by the testimonies of their contemporaries, thus: Ig- 
natius said " I know that after the resurrection Christ was 
in the flesh, and I believe him to be so still." Polycarp, an 
intimate friend of Ignatius, exhorted the people of Philippi 
to ''believe in Christ whom God did certainly raise from the 
dead." Tertulian also declared that Pontius Pilate wrote to 
the Emperor Tiberius saying "because of his resurrection 
Christ is believed to be a God." 

Five hundred persons and more, who had seen the risen 
Lord, must have uttered a most convincing testimony in 
favor of the resurrection. These testimonies added to the 
fear and the sophistries of the rulers, and to the sublime 



290 THE RESURRECTION 130DY. 

courage of the apostles worked their winning way into the 
convictions and the consciences of men. So convincing 
was the evidence that Christianity spread most amazingly 
during the apostolic age. Pliny the younger, who was 
consul and governor of Pontus, wrote A. D., 107, to the 
Emperor Trajan saying '•many of all ages and every rank 
and of both sexes are accused (of being Christians), nor has 
the contagion seized the cities only, but the lesser towns, 
and the open country." Tertulian said "if the laws against 
Christians were enforced Carthage would be desolate/' It 
could have been no weak or futile testimony that convinced 
the pagan and the philosopher, and which morally com- 
pelled people to believe despite the bloody hand of persecu- 
tion that pursued them. 

When any great event occurs, that event is usually 
immortalized by a monument of some kind, it may be a 
figure of bronze, a granite column, a triumphal arch, or a 
temples, lor instance. Bunker Hill monument bears testimo- 
ny to the fact that on the 17th of June, 1774. a battle was 
fought on that spot between the Americans and the Brit- 
ish. So there are monuments that perpetuate in the minds 
and the memories of men the truth of the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ; not of stone, or of marble, not of silver or of 
gold, but that which is more suggestive and significant than 
architecture or sculpture could be; they are the Christian 
Church and the Christian Sabbath. 

The Christian Church is a monument of the resurrec- 
tion, it is built on this great and glorious truth. Ever since 
that first day of the week when, early in the morning 
loving women, with spices that they had prepared, went 
to the tomb for the purpose of embalming the body of 
Jesus, but instead found the stone rolled away, the 
sepulcher empty, and that two shining ones declared 
the Lord is risen. Ever since that memorable day the 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 2tH 



Church ha« been propagating the truth of the resurrection 
and thousands and millions have been saved by its power. 

The Christian Sabbath is also a monument of the res- 
urrection. How came the Christian Sabbath if Christ is 
not risen? Ever since that resurrection morning the Sab- 
bath has not been Saturday but Sunday; that great mira- 
cle was the hinge on which the day was turned; thus^Igna- 
tius said " let every one that loves Christ keep holy the 
Lord's day, the Queen of days, the resurrection day;" and 
Theophilis, sixt}^ years after the death of John, said "reason 
challenges us to honor the Lord's day, thereby glorifying 
the resurrection of our Lord/' That Christian Sabbath 
still lives; there may be those who profane it, but it will 
not die, and as long as time continues whenever six days 
have passed the soft, sweet, restful, holy Sabbath will come 
back again to tell the world that Christ is risen. 

Thus there is abundant proof of the resurrection, it is 
inferred, it is revealed, it is demonstrated: the world is full 
of it, our hearts are touched with its inspiration. The res- 
urrection of Jesus is the promise of ours, because he lives 
we shall live also. The rays of this hope-star shine down 
among the shadows of our Gethsemane, and up to the 
flashing brow of our Olivet. As Christ came up from the 
darkness of death, and arose from the Mount of Olives to 
the Father's House, so shall we come up from the gloomy 
vale, and, in the glory of the resurrection morning ascend 
to the mansions on high. Having shown that there will 
be a re surrection, we remark 

II. THE RESURRECTION" BODY WILL NOT BE A NATURAL ONE. 

If the resurrection ho&y is to be identical with that 
which is buried then the resurrection is not to me, a boon 
to be desired; the reinstatement of a disembodied soul in the 
old house of clay is not so pleasing a thought as that uttered 
by Paul, ' ; God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." 



292 



THE RESURRECTION RUDY. 



When the young, the beautiful, tne vigorous, are sud- 
denly cut down, we may long for the Hashing eye and the 
protecting arm once more; but when dotage has plowed its 
furrows on the brow, or lengthened sorrow and protracted 
pain have robbed the human form of all its beauty, our 
finer feelings repel the thought that in such a form, with 
every earth-mark and defect prominent shall reappear the 
spirits of those we loved. 

Against this doctrine of a literal lifting up of the old 
body, unchanged, into another life, science offers its decided 
protest. It assures us that these fleshly bodies so necessary 
to us now may be compounded with other substances; na- 
ture may replenish its wasted energies with them; storms 
and material convulsions may carry our mortal dust to the 
uttermost corners of earth, it may enter into the substauce 
of some giant pine that flourishes on the mountain or some 
willow that laves its boughs in an undiscovered stream; in- 
deed future generations may feed on the essence of our 
ashes. Science also declares these bodies are continually 
undergoing changes, that they are completely renewed 
every seven years, so that to gather up the fragments would 
necessitate the unforming of many natural formations, and 
man himself must crumble before his brother man. The 
testimony of science, therefore, while it may not controvert 
the abstract idea of a resurrection, raises its voice against 
that forbidding doctrine that the self-same body that was 
buried shall be resurrected in the self-same form. 

It may be possible that there are individuals who, on 
their own responsibility, teach such a resurrection; but such 
teaching does not obtain in any system of theology with 
which I am acquainted. It is not, at least, taught in 
Methodist standards of theology. Raymond says of the 
feature body u it is both the same and another ;the same in every 
essential to identity; 1 ' another in the sense of having been 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. £93 

"changed so as to be qualified for the employments and 
enjoyments of the Heavenly state. 11 Luther Lee taught 
that it will be a resurrection of the same body though 
greatly changed, spiritualized and glorified, and enters into 
an argument to show that great changes are consistent 
with sameness. Watson, who for many years has been the 
standard theologian of Methodism declares that in the res- 
urrection the body will "experience great general changes 
as from corruption to incorruption, from mortality to im- 
mortality ; great changes also of a particular kind will take 
place, as its being freed from deformities and defects, and 
the accidental varieties produced by climate, aliment, labor 
and hereditary disease. 11 So far, therefore, as the philosophy 
of theology is concerned the objections and the remonstran- 
ces of science are hurled against the doctrine of the resur- 
rection without any force or significance whatever. We 
do no believe in such strange things as some scientists 
suppose; but we teach that the resurrected body will be 
dispossessed of everything that rendered it gross and earth- 
ly; it will not be a natural body, and nature may do what 
it lists with the material that is cast away. 

The phase u the resurrection of the body 11 jingles very 
prettily in the apostle's creed, but it is not the language of 
the apostles, it is true in a modified sense,but it is not exact 
and therefore it may be misleading; such an expression is 
not found anywhere within the covers of the Bible ; in the 
Holy Scriptures the doctrine is presented, not as a ressur- 
rection of the body, but a resurrection of or from the dead. 
It does indeed teach a certain corporiety, but the language 
is in harmony with good sense and sound philosophy, such 
as implies or asserts a particular, necessary, and wonderful 
change. 

In the 15th chapter, first Corinthians, for instance, 
where Paul makes an argument specially on this subject, 



2H4 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 



the apostle suggests that the body ensepulcbered will bear 
the same relation to the body resurrected as does the seed 
sown to the grain that 19 harvested; or in the eloquent words 
of Dean Trench that "the decaying of the insignificant and 
unsightly seed in the earth, and the rising up out of that 
decay and death the graceful stalk and the fruitful ear, 
contains evermore the prophecy of the resurrection, even 
as this is in itself a resurrection, the same process at a 
lower stage, the same power putting itself forth on meaner 
things. 11 



.-' 



The apostle, still farther, proceeds to show by his reas- 
oning, not that the product of the resurrection will not be 
a real body, but that it will not be the same precise^ that 
sorrowing survivors consigned to its narrow home. Thus 
he argues that there are differences even among terrestrial 
things; all flesh is not the same; there is one kind of flesh 
of man, another of beasts, another of fishes, another of 
birds; so the glory of the terrestrial is one. and the glory of 
the celestial is another; and we who have borne the image 
of the earthly, that is the terrestrial, must also bear the 
image of the Heavenly, that is the celestial, and the reason 
is because flesh and blood eannot inherit the Kingdom of 
God. So important is this putting away of the earthly and 
this putting on of the heavenly, that those who on the last 
day shall not have slept in death must nevertheless be 
"changed in the twinkling of an eye. 1 ' The apostle indeed 
announces in the most unambiguous manner that the body 
sown is natural, impotent, unhonored, corrupt, while the 
ressurrection body is incorruptible, glorious, powerful, 
spiritual. It might therefore be safely concluded that the 
immortal soul, subsequent to physical dissolution, will never 
be rehabilimented with the gross and fleshly garments which 
once it cast aside. 



THE RESURRECTION" HODY. 295 

But the Lord Jesus Christ also teaches tliat the resur- 
rection body will not be a natural body. To a thoughtful 
mind the words of Our Lord are pregnant with suggestion. 
He declares that in the resurrection they neither marry 
nor are they given in marriage, but are like the angels of 
God, this implies a considerable change of structure. 

The New Testament also represents, though the stom- 
ach is now adapted to meats and meats to the stomach, yet 
"God will destroy both it and them. 11 This declaration too 
is suggestive, it signifies that the animal appetite for food 
will be done away, and that the organ adapted to that appe- 
tite shall have no place in the resurrection. 

Now, if the resurrected body is to be immortal not 
mortal, incorruptible not corruptible; if the resurrected are 
not to many or to be given in marriage, if they are not to 
eat and drink, if the demand for material food is to be 
destroyed, if we are to be like the angels of God, nay, if 
our bodies are to be likened unto Christ's most glorious 
body, then it cannot be natural, it cannot be precisely the 
same as that mass of decay and corruption that was con- 
signed to dust and ashes. 

We mistake if we fancy that those simple elements of 
which the human body is composed are sufficient for a res- 
idence in a world of spirits. Certain proportions of potash, 
lime and iron cannot produce a body like unto the most 
glorious body of Christ. In. the>grave we shall drop mor- 
tality; 'with mortality will go materiality, its wearying bur- 
dens, its diseases, its pains, its infirmities, its weaknesses, 
its defects; the grossness of our decaying natures will 
dissolve away; from the lifeless sands will flow the bright 
mirror of immortality; out of the flesh destroying tomb 
will come the burnished chalice: and from the hand of 
death will spring the fadeless bloom of spiritual beauty. 



296 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 

We shall come torth immortal trom the grave; we shall 
have a building of God not made with hands; we shall 
be satisfied when we awake in his likeness. 

III. THE RESURRECTED BODY WILL BE SPIRITUAL. 

Let us inquire what, a spiritual body may be. Revela- 
tion contains no description, but enough is said to enable 
us to adduce a fair inference. 

The word spirit is a term by which we designate what- 
ever is unnatural, superhuman or supermundane. Literally 
the word spirit means wind, breath, or air in motion, and is 
applied to the vapory, the volatile, and the etherial. It is 
a term that is sometimes made to stand for the higher in- 
tellectual and moral endowments of man. All disembodied 
beings, and all intelligencies who have never been possessed 
of a body of matter are called spirits, and, it is the only 
word we have with which to express our idea of the nature 
of God, — "God is a spirit. Derived from the word spirit is 
the word spiritual, by which we mean that this or that con- 
sists of spirit, or pertains to spirit. 

These terms are used with the same significance in the 
Scriptures as in the Lexicon; and the Hebrew and Greek- 
words which are translated spirit mean literally wind or 
breath, and refers, in a wide sense, to whatever is not grossly 
material, the higher refinements of matter, and that which 
is absolutely independent of matter. The word spiritual 
occurs once in the Old Testament and perhaps twenty times 
in the New. Thin the Bible speaks of the spiritual as op- 
posed to the carnal and the natural; it speaks of spiritual 
things, that is doctrines, truths, experiences: spiritual bread, 
that is bread snpernaturally provided; spiritual men, men 
who have grown above all gross n ess and have received the 
blessing divine; it speaks also of a spiritual house, that is 
the whole family of God's redeemed children; it speaks also 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 297 



of spiritual wickedness, or fallen angels, and it announces 
the fact of a spiritual body or a body pertaining to the 
spirit-life and the spirit world. 

The most potent force in the universe is not matter but 
spirit. The microscope may disclose happy communities of 
insects on the petals of a rose, but it has never discovered 
the vital force, the spirit that inheres in a flower. The 
physiologist may discover the tiny sack enclosing a fluid in 
which floats a few granules or animated atoms, and declare 
that he has found the life substance, and perhaps he has, 
but the power, o v spirit by which it is endowed with vitality 
he cannot find. Newton discovered the law that binds this 
universe together and keeps the starry host in revolution, 
but the power itself has never been disclosed even under the 
lens of the strongest telescope. We can discover nothing 
but results, the appropriating arranging spirit is invis- 
ible. 

Now Scripture suggests that man is a three in one; 
that he is possessed of a living soul which is the result of 
the divine inbreathing; also of a body which has been 
formed from the dust of the earth; and besides he is pos- 
sessed of a spirit, an appropriating and arranging power, a 
vital something that holds soul and body together. This 
vital principle may lie dormant for awhile, but when the 
trumpet shall sound it will arouse to immediate activity 
and produce for the soul a new tabernacle such as will be 
suited to a spiritual life and a spiritual world. 

What then is a spiritual body? Let me answer this 
question by noticing what it is not, and what it is. It is 
not an extraction, some bone, some germ, taken out of the 
old frame, but it is rather an expansion of an essence already 
existing, it is an addition or something put on, for the 
apostle declared that "this corruption must put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.', The 



208 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 



natural body is not a descension, something that is to come 
down from above, no new creature will descend from the 
creative hand to meet the ascending spirit. This dissolving 
t'ibernacle spoken of by the apostle is the present world, 
not the human body, and when the world shall dissolve and 
pass away, God's immortal children will live in another 
world or house, a house not made with hands eternal in the 
heavens. No new tabernacle will descend from Heaven to 
receive the resurrected spirit, for the resurrection is not a 
descension but a bona fide resurrection, the body will be 
"raised in incorruption, raised in glory, raised in power.' 1 

Nor will the spiritual body be a growth, for the body 
buried though sown in dishonor, is not a seed, and the body 
raised, though raised in power, is not a plant. The spiritual 
body therefore is not a result of law. nor a product of time, 
nature's forces have nothing to do with it, but it shall come 
'forth suddenly, in a moment, responsive to the fiat of God. 
When Jehovah shall say to the North give up, and to the 
South keep not back, when the sea shall give up its dead 
and Death and Hell shall deliver up the dead that are there- 
in, then "we shall all be changed in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed." 

Nor will the spiritual body be a shadow, a nonenity, it 
will be real, substantial, it will be possessed of form, con- 
tour individuality, it will be a body, like unto the one that 
was buried save that it will have been rebuilt on a spititual 
basis. Nor will this rebuilding interfere with identity or 
recognition; it will be a finer substance stamped with the 
same unchangeable seal; the individual soul will impress it- 
self on the new form, therefore there will, there must be 
personal recognition in the resurection. 



THE RESURRECTION BODY. 299 

As we have seen, the resurected body will not be a 
natural body. It will not be produced by natural law, nor 
organized according to the plan of nature. It will not be 
made up of dissolving atoms, it will not be supported by 
natural products, nor will it be liable to disease or accident, 
nor will it serve the same purposes as a natural body. It 
will not live in the same conditions of existence, it will be 
immortal. 

Relieved of all grossness, like the pure atmosphere of 
mountain altitudes,and imponderable as a beam of light,it will 
be purely spiritual ; it will not be a burden as now it is but 
helpful like the wings to a bird, in service it will renew its 
strength; it will be capable of surmounting gravitation as did 
Christ when he ascended the skies; it will run to and fro 
like a spark or a fire, it will mount up with wings as of 
eagles; it will be transparent so that the soul will shine 
through as it did in the case of Christ when his face became 
glorious as the sun, or effulgent as when the Son of Man 
appeared to the dreamer of Patmos; with feet of flame it 
will speed lightning-like over immeasurable distances; it 
will partake of all the powers and possibilities of the spirit; 
it will live in immortal youth ; and it will bear forever the 
glorious image of its glorified Lord ; for u as we have borne 
the image of the earthly we shall also bear the image of 
the Heavenly." 

In conclusion, how sublime is the truth we have con- 
templated! Can it be possible that man feels no interest? 
True the next world can take care of itself, and present 
duty demands present attention, yet the hereafter has a 
bearing on the now, and present responsibility has al- 
together a different meaning because life is to continue for- 
ever to what it could have if being must be blotted out in 
a little while. 



300 THE RESURRECTION BODY. 

Considering the fact that each of us is possessed of a 
soul that time cannot destroy; that even our bodies having 
slept in the grave a little while will survive the shock of 
death; that there is a judgment coming, and that the ver- 
dicts of that day will fix us in weal or in woe forever, is it 
not strange that we blind our eyes and harden our hearts, 
unwilling to think, refusing to feel; is it not most singular 
that we persistently cling to sin and trample on offered 
mercy though heaven woos and the tribunal trumpet 
thunders? Oh sinner, you are immortal! Should you 
not by moral culture prepare yourself for the highest pos- 
sible destiny ? You are a steward of the Almighty, the 
present is your work-day, u much of your time has run to 
waste", you are net ready to meet the responsibilities of 
that great day. Oh repent! Are you willing upon soul 
and body that should outshine the sun, to have writ, 
recreant, base, doomed. 



THE END. 



A. F. MIRLAOH, & J. F. MIRLACH, 

JEWELRY ESTABLISHMENT, 



ORGANIZED 1867. 



WATCHES, CLOCKS, 

FINE JEWELRY, 

GOLD PENS, 







EYE GLASSES. 

POCKET CUTLERY, 

IN SHORT A FULL STOCK KEPT CON- 
STANTLY ON HAND. 

WATCHES, CLOCKS AND JEWELRY SKILFULLY 

REPAIRED, AND SATISFACTION 

GUARANTEED. 

ENGRAVING A SPECIALTY. 



LAW OFFICE 



OF 



EATON iHEMPEL, 



WILLIAMS' BLOCK 



BEAVER DAM, WIS 



COLLECTIONS 



IN THE UNITED STATES OR CANADA 



PROMPTLY MADE. 



RUSSIAN BATH INSTITUTE, 

Corner of Thud and West Streets, Beaver Dam, Wis. 

ELECTRO-MAGNETIC, RUSSIAN 

AND ALL FORMS OF 

MEDICATED BATHS 

IN CHARGE OF 

DR. L. E. HAZEN, 

Electro-Magnetic, and Botanic Physician. He will treat 
all kinds of diseases, acute or chronic, Cancer and Con- 
sumption not excepted. Most difficult cases invited. 

PIANOS, ORGANS, 

SEWING MACHINES 

AND 

JEWELRY AT WHOLESALE AND RETAIL! 



AGENTS WANTED in every town to sell a first-class 
Piano and Organ, for which I am General Agent. 

Ministers, Churches and Lodges furnished at jobbing- 
rates. 

Call, or write for particulars to 

COLUMBUS. WISCONSIN. 



CLARK HOUSE 



North of Temperance Hall, and adjoining 
Clark House. 

BEAVER DAM. - WISCONSIN. 



These excellent stables, are located on Center Street, 
only half a block from Main, conveniently to the Hotels 
and to all business places of the city. 



Passengers arriving by railroad will find our Bus at 
the Depot on the arrival of all trains, ready to convey them 
to whatever point they may desire to go. 



We carry passengers to the Hotel, and to our office 
free of charge: and furnish the best of Liveries at the very 



lowest prices. 



Also keep for sale and constantly on hand, the Cel- 
ebrated Racine Wagon and Carriage Company's Spring 
Wagons and Carriages of every style. All warranted. 

S. L. ROSE, 

For Proprietor. 



NEWTON & SCHERUBEL, 



DEALERS IN" 








,1111*11 ****** MllftiHMtfp 

sulks, 





LADIES'AJVD GENTS' 

V 



GLOVES, HOSIERY, Etc. 



CARPETS A SPECIALTY. 

NEW DESIGNS IN 

BODY BRUSSELS, 

TAPESTRIES AND INGRAINS. 



Everybody invited, Strangers visiting the city always 
welcome. 

NEW STORE, - - BEAVER DAM, WIS. 



GL "W. HOBTON'S 



PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY. 

AH work warranted to give perfect satisfaction. 



CALL A1TD SE3E! US. 



ELECTRO 

GOLD AMD SELVRR PLATING WORKS 



Special attention given to 

REFLATING 



SPOOIsTS, 



GS, 3f My m 



"WATCHES. ETC 



f 



Office next to National Bank, up stairs. 
BEAVER DAM. - - - WISCONSIN. 



BEULE'S 





H 



BEAVER DAM, WIS. 



FOR REASONABLE PRICES YOU CAN GET AT PETER BEULE S 
DRUG STORE. 



AND MEDICINES, 

Perfume, Toilet Articles, 

Fine Soaps, Paints, Oils, Varnishes, 

BRUSHES OF ALL KINDS, 

COLORS IN OIL, 

PATENT MEDICINES, 

AND ALL ARTICLES USUALLY POUND IN A PIRST-CLA8S 
DRUG STORE. 

PRESCRIPTIONS AND FAMILY RECIPES 
CAREFULLY COMPOUNDED. 



*MKmm sxoii 



P. WHITMORE & SON, 

OPPOSITE MUSIC HALL, 

BEAVER DAM, - WISCONSIN 






HAVE IN STOCK A WELL SELECTED 
ASSORTMENT OF 

JT HOUSE ~\ 

FURNISHING 



.6. 



\. 



GOODS, 



£ 



PICTURES AND FRAMES. 



wi 



CORNICES, FIXTURES, 



POLES, MIRRORS, Etc., Etc. 



D. D. BATHRICK, 

DEALEU IN 

SHELF AND HEAVY HARDWARE 

BEAVER DAM, WISCONSIN. 



A tin shop in connection in charge of Mr. J. E. Flanders. 
Country jobs receive prompt attention at reasonable prices. 
A full assortment of 

COOK AND HEATING STOVES 

always in stock. Call and see the 




Three-Burner. 



Monarch. A. 



The oven is made uf tin and lined with sheet-iron. Hea^ 
passes first under the vessels then into the oven. The heating 
chamber is made of cast iron. No other oil stove is made in 
which such a variety of cooking can be done at the same time. 
Will do as much work in the same time as any six-burner. 

For Sale by D. D. BATHRICK. 



J. MC KINSTRY, ' 

UNDERTAKER 



AND DEALER IN 





AND- 



UPHOLSTERY. 



The Undertaking department is complete, having a large 
stock of the finest 

COFFINS AND CASKETS, 

A SPLENDID HEARSE AND EVERYTHING 

REQUISITE IN THE BURIAL 

OF THE DEAD. 



Opposite National Bank. BEAVER DAM, WIS. 



U. O. SHIPMAN, 



DEALER IN 





PROVISIONS, 



^D SHOES. 



SECOND DOOR WEST OF NATIONAL BANK. 



BEAVER DAM. 



WISCONSIN 



BEAVER DAM 



KB 



H 





O 

> g 

W 

2 
w 
o 




i 



CO 



Those in need of anything in this line will lind it to their 
advantage to 

CALL AND EXAMINE 



OUR STOCK. 



FIRST-CLASS WORK 

AND MATERIAL GUARANTEED. 



SHOPS AT BEAVER DAM AND COLUMBUS. 



W. R. TURNER, J. W. MILLER, 

H. M. BLUMENTHAL, Proprietors. 




en mmm$mm : smmimwmmms 

Vita Park House, 

G. E. SWAN, M. D., Proprietor. 



Beaver Dam is sixty-three miles North-West of Mil- 
waukee; Vita Park House is within the limits of the city. 



EVERY VARIETY OF AMUSEMENT 

and Entertainment assured those who board at this Hotel. 
This House will open June 15th, and close Sept. 15th. 
unless a sufficient number wish to remain longer. 



VITA MINERAL SPRING 

Sends forth ten thousand barrels of pure, cold, delicious 
water every day. The Park is large and beautiful, im- 
pearled with three little lakes which aie spanned with 
rustic birdges. It is within five blocks of a lake that is 
ten miles long-. 



o 
£-1 



o 

T3 
O 

o 



CO 

£3 

PQ 

fix 

Q 



w 

ZA 

to 

i — i 
FH 

Q 

> 
o 



J. S. ROWELL, SONS & CO., 

BEA. VEIfc 13 AM, WISCONSIN, 

Manufacturers of the 

First Practical Seeder Used 

In the United States. 




W. E CALLEN, 

(Formerly of Milwaukee,) 





PAPEP HANGER 




AND 

OF 




1S4WI1© 



AND 



'] K 






Q 



Will furnish original designs, attend to all calls in City or 
Country promptly, and warrant satisfaction in his work. 

Address Box 217, Beaver Dam, Wis. 



Mr. Callen Decorated the Audience Koom of First M. E. 
Church, tastefully, beautifully and to the entire satisfaction of 
all concerned. J. L. HEWITT. 



EDWIN A, SCHILLER, 



DEALER IN 



Fancy Groceries, 



CROCKERY, 



9 



MENS' AND BOYS' HATS, 



GIT'S mm GOODS 



NOTIONS, ETC. ; 



WOULD BE PLEASED TO SHOW HIS GOODS 

AND INVITES ALL VISITORS TO 

EXAMINE THEM. 



FRONT STREET. 



MUSIC HALL BLOCK. 



BEAVER DAM, WISCONSIN. 



S. P. K. LEWIS &SON, 

EMPIRE FLOURING MILLS 

BEAVER DAM. - - WISCONSIN. 

F HEMPEL, 

NOTARY PUBLIC, 

BEAVER DAM, - - - WISCONSIN. 

R. M. BOWEST 

Steam Fitter, Gas Fitter, 

AND PLUMBER. FIXTURES FOR SALE. 

Opposite Music Hall. Beaver Dain, Wis. 

J. P. McGILL, ~ 

Harness, Saddles, Iris, Collars, Whips, Eobss, 

TRIURS AXD VALISES. 

One door west of Post Office. — Beaver Dam, Wis. 

J. J. ROWELL 

NEW ENGLAND BAKERY 

' Opposite Clark House. BEAVER DAM, WIS. 

G. E. TALBERT, M. D., 

PHYSICIAN & SURGEON, 

Office in Music Hall Block. 
BEAVER DAM. - . - - WISCONSIN. 



JOSEPH WAGNER, 

SEEDSMAN AND FLORIST, 



DEALER IN 



-#iBI!D 0AGi;S,^ 



BIRD SEED. GOLD FISH. 





i~L JX L A j M 



WIRE GOODS, 

Rustic Work, Flower Pots 

Etc., Etc.. Etc. 

PARK AVENUE, 

BEAVER DAM, WISCONSIN- 



WISCONSIN 

Female College. 

FOX IiAKE, DODGE COUNTY, WISCONSIN. 



A First-class Christian School, for the higher educa- 
tion of young women, under the control of the leadini 



Religious Denominations. 



Massive buildings, comfortable rooms; newly painted 
and refitted throughout. 

Do not send your girls to the Convent or District school 
when they can have such a safe and delightful home, with 
unequalled advantages in Music, Science, and Art. 

Please write for circulars and catalogue to 

MISS HELEN A. PEPOON, 

FOX LAKE. WISCONSIN. 



